So the next batch of manuscripts have been sent off to the First Readers — I’m at the 150 page mark.

It’s a little like painting a room. You put on the first coat. Take a break for lunch, let that first coat dry. Put on the second coat on one wall. Notice a spot on the ceiling, go get some paint remover. Put on the second coat on another wall and the third coat on the wall which already has a second coat because you’d forgotten you’d already done a second coat.

Notice that the fourth wall is patchy. Give it a quick second coat in the trouble spots. Realize later that you need to now re-do that entire wall. Give the third wall a once over, and you see that you’d forgotten to tape off the outlets or remove their faceplates on that wall.

At least that’s how I paint a room*.

 

It’s a somewhat more productive method that I use for drafting and editing my novel, Butterfly, which I’m sure you’re just dying to get your grubby little hands on. But it’s a similar method to the painting analogy. And this time round I’ve added one new painter’s tool to my toolbox, to allow me to go over the previously painted (to belabor a metaphor) sections is to use the laptop’s built-in ability to turn text into a spoken track.

 

So I use Scrivener, that excellent Mac-based writing software for organizing my manuscript. I’ll select all the text documents that make up a chapter, especially one that needs some work done, which gives me one long chunk of text.

I’ve got a whole other long and boring system for marking chapters that need work, in-progress, near final draft, and final drafts with different colored flag icons, but I’ll probably go into that at some other time if any one at all out there cares.

So I’ve got my big long window full of text. I hit ⌘-a to select all (Edit > Select All), and then right-click (or click with two fingers on the trackpad of the laptop) the highlighted text. What you should see is that menu above… with an item at the bottom for “Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track.” It’ll ask you what voice you want to use (the default voice, Alex, isn’t too bad), and then you’re good to go. You’ll hear a little noise when the transcription of the text into audio is finished.

In my particular workflow I then right click on that file in iTunes, show it in the Finder, and copy the track to Dropbox, and then open it on my iPhone for my walking around time or drive-time to have a listen to a reasonable facsimile of what I’ve written.

This is far, far easier than reading the text yourself into a microphone and making your own version with your own voice. Besides, if you recorded your novel-in-progress in your own voice you’d likely just cringe at how that doesn’t sound a thing like you the entire time and not pay too much attention to the words you’re speaking.

 

 

* Now available for hire for reasonable rates for all your interior painting needs.