Coffee With David

As 2009 winds down, I have begun to look to 2010 and what steps I need to take in my writing career. I started this year thinking I could accomplish a lot more than what I did. Taking the lessons from this year, I am expanding my horizons. Writing is not only a passion to me, but it is also a business. As such I cannot just focus on bylines in 2009. I have to take my writing to the next level, improve it, and makea little money with it. While being a “starving author” can be romantic that romance only goes so far.

I have placed goals on my website where it would appear that I will be attempting to produce one book a month. That is an illusion. There is a lot of overlaps in projects that produces that. However, that idea of a goal was made prior to signing on with some online publishers for non-fiction writing that will pay me for my work. So, back to the writing plan drawing board. I still want to produce at least 6 books (4 novels, 1 poetry, and 1 self-defense) book next year and have begun work on those. I also want to take what I have written (like Dark Medicine, The Indebted, and others) and get them out to possible publishers. Add to this list are the sprinkling of short stories and poems as well as weekly blogs. I will also be holding various seminars throughout the year.

All of this added to a full time “bill paying” job and a very active life. All I can say is “Thank God for Coffee!” I know I will be juggling my schedules and learning when I have overloaded myself. 2010 looks to be another odyssey into self-discovery as a poet, a writer and as a martial artist.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

In a previous blog I discussed a problem I faced with my writing. Events of the year have lead me to start dictating my poetry, stories, and novels. This method has been working very well and I can hear the speech patterns and vocal traits that my characters have as my voice takes on those traits. But, what to do with the dictation? Do I transcribe it myself, which will take up a lot of time? Do I hire someone to transcribe it? Do I buy software to transcribe for me while I go to work on another story?

These questions I posed in a previous blog. Since then, while dictating, I discovered that what I needed to do was transcribe it myself. While this may take a lot of time—as one hour of transcription covers less words than one hour of dictation—I realized while I was dictating that no computer could pick up on the voice change and the significance of that change between the characters. It would take a thinking person to transcribe it—catch the spelling of the speech and fill in holes the characteristics of the speech description that I may not have described in the dictation.

I could hire someone, and obviously that is an expensive venture, I would be totally reliant on their ability to understand, transcribe and fill in the holes. This maybe something I want to reconsider in the future, but as of now I consider it too much of a risky dependence. As a result, I have decided that the best recourse would be to transcribe everything myself—at least for the moment.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.