Non-fiction Writing – The Productive Author

How Creating Dictation Drills from Classic Literature Helped Me Finally Learn Speech to Text

With so many payoffs, learning how to dictate may be one of the best uses of your writing time right now. Here’s why. I love classic literature. Because books like Far From the Madding Crowd and The Count of Monte Cristo were some of the first books I read as an adolescent, when I began analyzing stories on […]

by Cindy Grigg

The Productive Author’s Guide to Dictation

I have rebranded, retitled, redesigned, and republished a resource I completed at the end of 2014, detailing how dictation has revolutionized my fiction writing and blogging. I also use dictation for some non-fiction tasks, but I have found it better for creative thought than it is for assimilating or synthesizing. That said, I meet people […]

by Cindy Grigg

Writing and Fiction Podcasts to Love

These days I prefer listening to my reading, as opposed to absorbing books, news, and articles with my eyes. I discovered this while pursuing my initiative to sit less and move more. We’ve probably all heard by now that sitting all day is terrible for us, and as writers we tend to sit plenty! To fight […]

by Cindy Grigg

My Panelist Schedule for Comic Con 2015 #FanX15 in SLC

I am super excited to be a panelist at next week’s Comic Con 2015: Fan Experience in Salt Lake City, Utah. The last couple have been an absolute blast! For all you writers, my book about how to save your poor wrists while amplifying your hourly word count came out a month ago: HOW TO DICTATE […]

by Cindy Grigg

NaNoWriMo Dropout? 5 Ways to Succeed This Year

NaNoWriMo 2014 has come and gone, leaving victors and casualties in its wake. Even though I finished my NaNoWriMo this year and in fact produce enough fiction word count to call every month a WriMo, I identify more with the dropouts because I tried to do National Novel Writing Month several times before this year–all […]

by Cindy Grigg

How I Wrote 6000 Words in 6 Miles By Going on a Writing Walkabout

You do not have to sit butt-in -chair to be productive! Learn how to write your book using dictation on a walk.

by Cindy Grigg

5 Words I Made Up to Describe NaNoWriMo

The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge is a many-faceted thing. To describe the experience, I found myself needing to mash up some fresh word concotions. Technically every month is NaNoWriMo for me. I do between 15,000 and 20,000 words per week of fiction writing. Sure, that’s all pure, gunky draft but it’s out there! […]

by Cindy Grigg

Two Blogs Diverged…

This past week I’ve done a makeover on how I blog. I’ve been like Robert Frost’s traveler in the woods facing two diverging roads, only I’ve been trying to stradle both until I think I pulled something! So then it came to me. Frost said he couldn’t travel both and be one traveler, but he […]

by Cindy Grigg

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Powers of Dictation

While Dracula may not ever wise up to dictation, the fabulous John (or Jack) Seward did. In Bram Stoker’s classic novel several chapters are devoted to asylum director and psychiatrist John Seward’s diary based on phonograph recordings regarding his patients. He and Abraham Van Helsing try to save Lucy Westenra from the vampire. If it’s […]

by Cindy Grigg

13 Advantages to Dictating Your Writing

I began looking into dictation for several reasons. Like many people, I have experienced back problems which make it hard to sit at a computer and write all day. I’ve also had trouble keeping weight off since becoming a full-time writer. There, said it! You might relate to these reasons or have some of your […]