Fanfare, please

Do you remember my blog post "a spanner in my works"? Well, the upshot of that was that I had hit a wall in my ’work in progress’ because I had aggravated my wrists and elbows to the point where I had rip-roaring RSI. That happened in March and I expected it to be gone in April. He we are, practically in July, and I'm really not much better. It's been a huge lesson in patience and I've had to change my working methods.

Using dictation software is a huge challenge, not least because it always seems to degrade over time – this evening it decided to type everything without any spaces, helpful. Wrestling this Dragon is worse than any fantasy battle I could write!

I always write or edit or plan in my lunch half-hour and to not have that time in which write new words is really hard  – it's tough starting to write in the evenings with a zero word count on my project target bar. So I've been inventive, taking my break after everybody else so that I can sit outside and dictate out of earshot of anyone else, when that hasn't been possible I’ve been sweltering in the car with the doors and windows open (I think this will work better in the autumn!).

And tonight, I've done it: first draft of my wip is finished (I dictated an exclamation mark here but the dictation software inserted a ? which is probably more accurate!) Dictation struggles with the little words so I can't help thinking it's inserted another layer of editing for me to do but, hey, I can still write. It might feel very different dictating the story, rather than seeing it appear on the screen without really having been conscious of what I wanted to say, but I'm trusting that the magic still happens. And I'm looking forward to editing to see what magic is in this one.

PS if you were wondering how I did in the World Cup word count challenge in the 15 days it's been on, I've written 22,888 words - just a little pleased at that!!!