5/28/2023 0 Comments Barbara cartland towards the stars![]() Because I write all over the place – trains, tubes, libraries, cafes etc, this wouldn’t work for me, but I’m told it’s a great way of getting a 5000 – 7000 daily word output relatively easily – which is what Cartland enviably did. I’ve not tried dictation software yet, but I know many other authors who dictate their fiction now, so it appears straight on the word processing programme from their lips. To be able to simply talk a story out loud while someone takes it down in shorthand is an enviable skill. I wrote an academic essay and was told although it covered all the requisite parts, it was in first person (the point of view I prefer to write my fiction in) and was far too conversational (just like my fiction, I’m told). ![]() I’ve been told I write exactly like I talk – which is a nice complement I feel. If you write like you talk, that pitfall can be avoided. One of the criticisms of overly clunky cloying writing is it feels like writing. Dictating your writing would, I’m sure, make it much more conversational style. Even a chief executive would probably reply to their own correspondence (emails now). ![]() Nowadays where everyone in the workplace tends to have their own computer, shorthand is a dying art. In 1979 pre-computers in the office, a secretary would have taken letters shorthand and then typed them. Having a secretary to take down what you say aloud in shorthand is certainly a product of its time. It requires extraordinary powers of concentration, and Mrs Elliott, apart from being very accurate, has long discovered how to remain invisible and totally discreet throughout the process. It was Godfrey Winn who first advised her to do this: ‘The words you speak are so much more immediate and sincere than those you write,’ he explained to her – invaluable advice.įor she has taught herself the virtuoso art of unhesitating dictation. And for the next two and a half hours, Barbara dictates a chapter of her latest novel. As an extra safeguard a tape-recorder is switched on. Mrs Audrey Elliot, her literary secretary, sits behind her, pad in hand. Are we sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin. Often Domino sits next to me as I type away on my Neo. I think it’s important to write somewhere where one is comfortable. She walks from the dining-room, followed by her dogs, across the hall and into Grandpa Potter’s big library.There she makes herself comfortable on a big yellow-brocade sofa in front of the fire – a hot water bottle at her feet and over her legs a pink rug covered in white fur.
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