I just purchased some books so that I could write much faster with a rough draft. These books are about stenography/shorthand, where words or some common sentances or phrases are represented by quickly stated scrawls of the pen or by abreviating every word so densely that it forms somewhat of a code. The fact of the matter is -- if you become good at it, you can type down up to 200 words a minute. What do you guys think? here's the books I purchased. Speedwriting for Notetaking and Study Skills The GREGG Shorthand Manual Simplified They both are two different meathods to short hand, but I'd also like to use it in class and quote the teacher word for word -- it would also put a whole new defanition to the meaning "rough draft" for me and I think I need that.
Me personally, I'm not sure I would go that route just because I would be afraid that I was losing something in my writing. I generally have a mood or something that dictates why I wrote the sentence the way I did and shorthanding it might lose its appeal or meaning in my eyes. Let me know how it works out for you. I would be interested to see if it helps in your writing at all.
I'm the same, feeling also dictates what I write. For example, if I'm writing an angry piece, I'll use hard consonants and quick vowels, as well as short independent clauses in my sentences (using semi-colons, I mean). When I first started writing a few years ago, this was mainly the way I wrote. I still haven't mastered [got to an acceptable standard with] anything besides anger. Everything else just comes out full of sentimentality. But this short hand thingi, to be honest, I wouldn't use it myself. For one thing, when you're writing, you need to not just "feel" the rhythm, but also see it. Unless of course your own rhythm comes out naturally/unconsciously. But I'm nowhere near doing that yet.
it's just a rough draft guys. It's just putting the storyline, character development, and primary message out there. You can insert a mood once you've finished the rough draft. The rough draft is just a messy sketch or blueprint of the story. Nothing has to be exactly as it's stated. If it's in shorthand, you're forced to rewrite every chapter in longhand and that will get your creative juices flowing because it'll be as good as starting out fresh, only you absolutely know exactly where the story is going. I'll keep you posted on whatever I learn.
lol. okay, I get ya. Actually, using those does sound like it could be useful. Speeding up auto-writing would definitely delve deep into your subconsciousness.
More for journalism and taking down notes quickly really. My Grandmother uses this. What type are you to use? There are two types.
Very useful. I learned Pittmans shorthand before I became a journalist and found it invaluable. I did all my interviews, using shorthand and it was also very handy for taking notes. Unfortunatly, after I was given a freebie tape recorder, I stopped using my shorthand. I haven't forgotten it though. I just can't write at 180 wpm anymore. Definitely, investigating those books and learning. HTML: Frances Lynn is a professional writer and journalist. Her two novels, "Frantic" and "Crushed" are published by Eiworth Publishing at http://yourbookstore.eiworth.se/. Her musings about writing can be read at http://www.writerholic.blogspot.com/ Her personal website is http://franceslynn.org HTML:
Here's an update. I found a website that has a nifty program... but it doesn't do much... you'll have to either decode it yourself or you'll have to search all over their site because they have a specific Steno language that I've never ran into. But it also translates what you wrote into english all by itself. So if you have the time to actually learn it – then this seems like a good use of your time. It IS impressive and I'm awaiting an email from them to point me in the right direction as to a BOOK I can read that might help me out with leaning it. I’m hoping they didn’t just make something up that’s all their own, otherwise the only way to learn to use it is from paying them money. And I like to learn stuff on my own, not by sitting in a seminar… I hope other books are written on this specific form of Steno Also you don’t need to buy a new keyboard. All you need to do is print out a picture they have of a keyboard with the symbols for each key, then you can laminate the page, cut out those symbols and paste them onto a keyboard you never use (but will start using whenever you want to write in steno). It IS interesting. But it’s complex and I’ve just barely started looking into this. If you can learn anything about this program before me, please share. You can download the program for free and do a tad bit of research at: http://www.stenold.org/ HOWEVER, my hopes are a little shattered. This is the ONLY type of STENO on a computer... at least -- the only one that I can find. I've looked all over the internet for a steno/speedwriting keyboard for a computer -- but sadly, those just simply don't exist. There's something called a STENOTYPE that is specifically used in interviews or courtrooms. This CANNOT be used on a computer because you're required to press multiple keys all at once and it works for a stenotypewriter, but not for a computer, it'll confuse the hell out of it because of the way computers processes information. So the methodology used in courtrooms are not applicable for computers -- bummer. I was hoping to learn and use THAT method. I also looked into purchasing a Stenotype. They range to quite the high price that I’m not willing to pay and they imprint what they write on a special film and that’s too pricey for me too… Then they run that film through a computer and the computer then automatically translates it – which is cool, but it’s not practical for my uses. I might consider writing in shorthand with the good old pen and paper -- and when I'm done with that, I can work my way into working on the computer. There's actually HUNDREDS of different types of Steno languages. Each one is dramatically different. Many of them are long dead an no longer used, but the idea of speedwriting has been alive for a really long time. If you're into just trying to abbreviate each letter with 5 specific rules to guide your abbreviating methodology, there's something called Easy Script (There's a book-audio teaching series you can buy on Amazon regarding this topic), but that won't really speed you up that much. If you're writing by hand with the Easy Script method, the best you'll probably ever do is 40 wpm... if you ask me, that's pathetic. That means I'd probably only improve my speed by 40 wpm extra on a keyboard. With some Steno techniques people have become good enough to type up to 200 wpm by hand -- imagine what it could do through typing. It would probably triple your typing speed. There's another book I picked up -- but I don't think that I'll ever use it. I don't know what this form of Steno is called, but the books name is "Speedwriting for notetaking and study skills". I don't like it at all, because it seems too much like Easy Script -- but a little bit more accurate. I’ll never read this book because you can NEVER use this method on a computer -- seeing as it mixes alphabetical letters with symbols. I looked into the PITMAN method, actually, but I wasn't impressed. Specific letters or group-letters are required to be bold, and if that were ever to be put into computer form, it would be annoying to keep bolding every other letter. The current book that I'm having high hopes with is the Gregg's method. I bought a book entitled: "Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified Second Edition". However, even this method is rather odd because there are multiple similar symbols that are almost exactly the same. The only difference from some symbols is that some of them are bigger than others. Possibly one can just have a series of keys and shift-using symbols on a keyboard that could assist with that problem, so maybe I'm being too hard on this one too. Maybe I could get some of my computer buddies to get in on this and make a complex program using the Gregg method. Yeah -- I'd recommend the Gregg method. Each symbol is symbolic of (usually) several letters. This means that the phonic alphabet that they use is rather smaller than longhand’s. When you look at it, it looks like a weird cursive, but each little wiggle of the pen means something… it’s so accurate in my opinion. It makes me wish we wrote THIS WAY, but oh well. The Gregg method. I can’t stress how impressed I am with it thus far. If you go to Wikipedia and look up “shorthand” you’ll learn that the Gregg method is actually used by more people around the world than most forms of Steno. So – if I get my buddies in on this and make a program that might be able to be marketed, then possibly there might be a market for it… possibly a little plastic key-glove can slide right over the top of the keyboard to assist people in seeing what keys to what (I wonder if that makes any sense to anyone but me… oh well). Oh -- and someone mentioned that this is mainly used for note taking. Yes it is. But I'm sure you can use if for other methods... this is just an experiment that I'm trying to do. I'm trying to learn it on the side of everything else I'm trying to do.
Well -- I talked to a buddy of mine about making some software for Gregg's shorthand and he pretty much suggests that I just write it by hand and says that it would be much faster and all the algorithms for the texts would be a little to complex for his desires. Bummer. I'm still going to learn it, and I'm thinking of experimenting with using it as a rough draft for short stories.
Good luck amigo. I'm sure you could pick up a few techies to help you out over at sourceforge.net if you really go for the program. Otherwise, it's nice to have a quick way to jot down lengthy ideas away from the computer without the burden of thought flowing faster than pen. Have you tried speech recognition? Crazy accurate and faster than Wile E. Coyote! zb PS. Lived in St. George for a few years - AWESOME place.
Well -- yeah St. George is okay, but it's a black and white little town. People here are catagorized as two things. "Mormon" and "Not Mormon". The scenery is pretty good, and my dayjob is stonemassonry -- so I'm constantly complimenting it and making everything here look really nice -- if not better. But as soon as I'm comfortable at doing Stonemassonry enough to do it completely on my own and know that I don't need anymore suggestions from a person that's teaching me or something -- I'm out of this town. I'll miss my family -- but oh well. It's hard to get along with Utards (Or as most people call them "Utahns") Any time I talk to people outside of Utah, suddenly everything is so much simpler. There social rules here that I never understood and just can't see I guess... and for the most part, I grew up here... Which is odd. Oh well. Anyways -- Back to the topic of stenography.
