Betrayed by Dragon
Not long after I fell on the early December ice, dislocated my elbow and broke the radial bone, I wrote about having discovered Dragon software. It was quite magical. I spoke into a microphone, and the words I spoke appeared on the screen in front of me.
As I said earlier, I wasn't sure I could write that way. Many years ago, I began having problems with carpel tunnel, and my very practical-minded brother recommended that I try voice recognition software. I was convinced, though, that my words had to come out through my fingers to reach the page in proper order. In addition, at that time, the only available program was frustratingly difficult to work with.
As a consequence I've spent years seeking ergonomic solutions. I have a desk chair that supports my arms and permits them to move, still supported, toward the keyboard. The chair I use is called BodyBilt, the company is Ergogenesis. I recommend it highly, though it's expensive. If you check it out, note that it comes with different kinds of arms, and the type of arms I have on my chair don't show up easily. In fact, when I replaced my chair recently I had difficulty, even dealing directly with the company, finding the same kind of arms. I finally got them again, but they didn't appear on the website, and the salesperson I dealt with at first didn't understand what I was asking for.
I also use a track ball instead of a mouse and have one dedicated to the left hand, which was--before my recent fall--my less vulnerable wrist. (Incidentally, the physical therapist I've been working with is less enamored than I am with track balls. She thinks the movement of a mouse is less stressful and has some suggestions about positioning the mouse such as putting it on a pad on your lap.)
And for many years I've used a Kinesis keyboard. (Available only online.) The position of the keys is such that you have to spend some time relearning to type--and when I broke my arm I discovered that it's impossible to hunt and peck on it--but my Kinesis keyboard has kept me out of trouble for a long time. One of the advantages it has is that it puts all the function keys under your thumbs, which are stronger than your fingers.
These solutions all served me well until I broke my arm and couldn't get the rotation I needed to use my left hand at the keyboard. That's when I turned to Dragon.
Dragon's capacity is truly amazing. And its capacity, I know, goes far beyond what I learned to control during the weeks I wrote using it. I was eager to get back to work, so I moved through the tutorials quickly and didn't explore much beyond them. Its accuracy isn't 100%, of course. I'm writing a verse novella about a calico cat, and for some reason it can't hear me say cat. Another more amusing example, I have a grandson named Cullen, and when I send an e-mail to Cullen the program insists of writing : It is, however, far better than good. And there are, I know, ways to improve Dragon's accuracy that I didn't take the time to learn. You can even ask it to read back what you've just said, and it does. (That's something I stumbled onto accidentally when the program misunderstood what I had asked it to write and gave me a read back instead.)
But--and it is a huge but--despite the fact that Dragon is designed, in particular, to work with Word, after I'd worked with it for a while, it began to crash Word. Again and again and again. Checking online I found that other people have had the same experience.
And when I realized that I was done with Dragon . . . or wanting passionately to be done with it.
Fortunately, all that happened as I approached the time that the combination of healing and physical therapy were finally beginning to give me the rotation I need to type with both hands. And now, here I am, back on my Kinesis keyboard, thinking with my fingers.
Home, at last!
So can I recommend Dragon? Only if you really, really need it to survive.
And in the meantime, I'm still sorting the question I started with. Where do my writing brains live anyway?
My stories flow so naturally from my fingers!