Attended a conference in Melbourne at the start of the week. One of the highlights was listening to Sushi Das, senior writer with The Age. Enjoyed hearing someone with so much journalistic integrity describe her approach to writing news stories and feature articles. This seminar also had me taking note afresh of the similarities and dissimilarities with writing fiction - things which can be learned or borrowed from journalists to sharpen fiction.
Have been playing around with Dragon Naturally Speaking across the last fortnight. Wanted to try this program for years, but finally got round to loading it recently. Was a little sceptical after hearing of Mrs T's difficulties with this Voice-Recognition software over at her Witty Ways blog, but given that stories grow out of an oral tradition, it seemed a reasonable idea to try and take story-telling back to an oral approach, as long as the Dragon and I were compatible with one another.
Thought I'd try reciting Jack and Jill as one of my first exercises, before cracking into a lengthy short story I've been telling for years but have never written down.
First time I tried, it came up with:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To Japan across the water...
Hmm, not sure how it managed that. Second and third time it did exactly the same. To Japan across the water. Thought maybe I'd read too much Haruki Murakami of late or that it was having difficulties with my peculiar blend of accents, so did some retraining. This involved reciting all of John F Kennedy's speeches to Congress, or some such, along with a couple of comedy sketches that the program obviously enjoyed hearing read aloud. Anyway, a couple of hours later, I try Jack and Jill once again.
This time it comes up with:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To bitch about the water...
It might not be 100% accurate, but at least it seems to be on a similar wavelength to me. If I had to climb a hill every time I wanted to fetch a pail, I'd bitch about the water too. The program stays. It can shape the grittier, less-tolerant voice behind my next story.
