Random question, after learning that I may be dyslexic.. Are there any people on this forum who are dyslexic? If so, how are you dealing with it, especially when it comes to writing? One of the barriers I've come across is, whenever I'm speaking, I rarely stumble through my sentences and can actually articulate my thoughts quite well.. ..but when it comes to writing, most of the time, it's a different story altogether. My mind seems to go blank, and I am finding it increasingly harder to translate what I want to say/thoughts into words. The time I struggle the most is when I'm writing fiction. Unless I am completely 'in' the scene/story, which is next to never, it's extremely hard for me to describe what I'm trying to describe, as it is now typing this. It's like I'm reaching into thin air for words that I believe, am confident are there, but keep coming back with an empty hand. When I read, those words become readily available. Does that make sense? And can anyone relate? Or has anyone found a solution to this problem?
Wow. That's really a shame. Your writing is very smooth, and certainly doesn't show the difficulty behind it. I'm not dyslexic myself, nor do I know any dyslexic writers. However, my nephew is blind, and he uses some fairly sophisticated voice recognition software to write papers, emails, whatever. If you would find it easy to speak into one of these programmes, which would immediately translate what you say into a printable format, that might be worth looking into. If you simply 'dictate' into some sort of voice recorder, then you have to transpose what you've said, which can be a pain. However, if you could speak your story and see your spoken words turned into an immediate written format, then you'd be able to edit and mess around with it, same as the rest of us do. My nephew has to sit and listen to his work read back to him in a dull, computer-generated voice, but you could just look at what's there and deal with it yourself. Anyway, good luck.
I'm sorry you have to cope with such challenges. But there's loads of help out there, from glasses which help with reading to exercises and ways around. One simple thing you might want to try (before you find a better solution perhaps) is to dictate your words instead of writing them. There's an app called DragonDictation (I'm sure there are all sorts of programmes out there) who get trained on your voice and will automatically transcribe the recording for you. All you need to do is go through it later and fix the mistakes (and there aren't many). Dyslexia hasn't stopped many great people from achieving their goals. I always remember my professor from Uni. It wasn't until he earned his second PhD and assistant professorship that he came out with the fact that he can not read at all due to severe dyslexia. Not a word. His entire knowledge and research were completely in his head. One of the most intelligent people I have ever known
To be more specific, I don't suffer from the ailments that make it hard for me to read, such as getting letters mixed up, or spelling phonetically.. but the symptoms lie in my retention of information, my ability to translate my thoughts, and how I'll sometimes jumble syntax.. Dictation sounds like a solid route.. I actually gave it some thought not too long after I started this thread, so the fact that two people have brought it up makes me wonder if it could be a viable route for me to take.. Thanks for your input!
