I’m writing this blog post by talking to my iPad, using a free app called DragonDictate. After I’m done, I’ll email the text to myself, extracted as a file, and edit it using Dragon Naturally Speaking, the high-end voice-to-text software I live and write by.
In fact, I wrote most of my new novel, KAVORKA, Lure of the Animal, by talking to either my computer, my smart phone, my iPad, or into a digital audio tape recorder on my nearly 200-mile-a-day round-trip commute. I’ve been writing by talking into such devices for years, saving the wear and tear on my carpal tunnels. I’m using my experiences in writing by talking to write yet another how-to book, teaching you how to organize your thinking as you talk so you can create coherent writing.
But in this blog post I’m introducing a novel structure, pun intended. This trick comes to me by way of a letter from my agent, passing on a letter from St. Martin’s press, seeking authors for serial novels. The idea was to formulate small novels of 20,000 words or so into a series like a television miniseries of five or six episodes. Read More->
I’ve been out of blog-touch for far too long. The career as writer, editor, photographer and all-round flunky at a magazine that has been an utter passion for me became a too-demanding mistress. But now I have retired from her to catch up on your world, the world of writing. With this whole new digital publishing locomotive barreling down the tracks, I feel like one of those guys running alongside an empty boxcar. But I’m going to make the leap. 
How-to writers should practice what they preach…I’m talking about me.
Remember when you went from handwriting your manuscripts to composing them at the keyboard?