5.15

     I got my minute today!  I practiced writing it for about half an hour, and then on the very last runthrough before I was going to take a break, I decided to loosen up a little and not be so strict about accuracy, and I got it at 250 wpm (at the end, anyway) and 96% accuracy!  It took me exactly a week, which isn’t bad at all.  I think it was easier material than the rest of the piece has been, though.

     I realized that I really like writing to a metronome.  It’s almost calming, knowing that everything is going to happen at exactly the same speed.  I also like how there’s not really any pressure, at least not right now when I’m just seeing what my top speed is on all the exercises.  Yesterday my average speed actually went up from 125 to 129, but today it went back down to 127.  I had to record something at 75 wpm, which is insanely slow.  It had to do with PL-, which I’m apparently very bad at. “Fruit” was thrown in, too, though, and I guess all of those PL- words with an FR- word in the middle really threw me off. I think I have problems with F- in general.

     The Phoenix book talks about how important keyboard position is, so you’re able to reach all the keys easily.  I decided to try lowering my machine a bit.  I use the plastic case it came in as a lap desk, so to lower it, I opened the case and started writing on just the thicker half.  It looks weird and I don’t know if I could do it if I had a desk in front of my legs, but it seems to feel a lot better.  I should probably buy a real lap desk, but I like the idea of not having to bring it with me or spend money on it.

     I think the new position has helped, though, because ever since I got the LS, I’ve had to actually put my fingers on the home row to figure out where the machine is every time I take my hands off it, which I never had to do with the SRT. I had to define 150 null strokes because I would of course never hit the home row, but it would still help me know where I was.  I created my last one on the 6^th.  I can’t really be sure if I’m using the null strokes less, but it seems like I am.

     I don’t know if it was inspired by the Phoenix book or not, but I also decided to file my nails extremely short.  I always kept them short to help me write, but I was never truly writing with my fingertips like you’re supposed to.  I filed them down yesterday after my practice, as low as I could go without hurting myself.  They look really pathetic now and it’s actually rather depressing.  I like writing with them short, though.  It feels like being barefoot.  I can feel the keys a lot better.  I’d like to say that’s why I got my minute today, but I don’t think that was it.  I’ve been feeling more confident about it for the past couple of days, and I think I was successful in focusing on being slow and accurate with this minute.

     I started incorporating endings into my root words about nine months ago.  I went crazy with it and added everything you could.  It turns out that it wasn’t quicker for me to write that way, at least not right now, so I’ve backed off of some of it.  I added -L as an option for –l and –ly, but it created this problem where it would suggest it for both things on the same word, and I just now got around to taking it out of the integral prefixes and suffixes option.  I went ahead and added it as an option with an asterisk, although sometimes I do write it without one, like SLOEL for slowly.  I always get things like that popping up as suggestions, and I’ve started declining them when I think I won’t use them, to leave them open for Translation Magic to do something else with.  I wonder if I should just take them out of the table altogether?

     I found out yesterday that all the spots for the Caption Masters program in July are full.  I was going to re-test at some point before July, and I checked the status every day, and it magically went from three seats open to none, so I guess they weren’t updating it, because I doubt all three filled up in the same day.  That kind of pulled the rug out from under me, but maybe I can change the way I practice on my own.  I want to get a copy of the VITAC book because it deals with how to change your writing and your dictionary to get ready for realtime, and that’s definitely something I’ve been trying to work on (and struggling with) recently.  The only problem is you can’t buy the book anywhere!

5.13

     I am slowly making progress on my minute.  I can only tell how fast I’m going at the very end, but I was writing at 250 wpm once yesterday and once today.  I’m also sporadically getting to about 214 at the end now.  I finally decided to give up my brief for driver.  I’ve never really been able to write it well, and so now I’m just going to write DRAOIV/ER.  I think instead of dictionary maintenance, I’m going to finish getting through all 107 exercises in the Phoenix drill book.  So far I’ve made it through 30, and my speed is slowly falling, unfortunately.  It’s down to 126 now.  Last time I did any work with a metronome, my average speed was 104, but that had some multisyllabic words, so I guess I can’t really make a comparison.

     The biggest problem I’m having with the exercises in the drill book, besides not being able to go fast enough, is coming to a dead stop whenever I make a mistake.  You’re supposed to just keep going without erasing in order to keep a steady rhythm.  I’m working on the same thing during speedbuilding, too.  I might as well be stopping every time I feel myself make a mistake, because I have to write the word again once, twice, or even three times before I can keep writing, and by then I’ve missed quite a bit of audio.  I’d be much better off if I could just ignore it and keep going.  My accuracy wouldn’t suffer that much, either.  The problem I’ve had with trying to do that in the past is then I can’t focus on writing anything well and I just write slop.  I need to find a happy medium, where I try to write everything perfectly, but if I don’t, I just ignore it and keep going.

     I did get another cool thing from the Phoenix book.  They say to check your machine position, you should write “green glass, black and blue.”  I like that.  It works well for reassuring me that my machine is in the right place.  I have a terrible time with positioning, and it hasn’t gotten any better on the LS.  I always feel like I have to “search” for the keys, or like they’re not where I expect them to be.  I like to really press the keys and linger on them every time I hit to get a feeling for where I am, which is the totally wrong thing to do, but I’ve never gotten the hang of the “light touch.”  I was definitely a pounder on my SRT, and it completely threw me off when I tried to make the touch lighter on it.  I know I can write faster on the LS, I just don’t know if it helps me to go faster when my accuracy suffers.

     I hate how nothing translates properly anymore.  I’ve changed how I write so much from the StenEd that nothing is in my dictionary, it seems like.  It makes me feel like I haven’t made any progress, like I’ve only gone backwards and it’s going to take forever to go forwards.   I also put in ton of new suffixes and prefixes, but I haven’t learned any of them, so I never know how to write anything, and I always just write it the old way and it comes out wrong.  I need to actually learn those prefixes and suffixes or having them in my dictionary isn’t doing me any good.