MacSpeech Dictate - first impressions

I have torn ligament in my left wrist at the moment that’s been slow in healing partially due to my own stupidity in overusing it. I also have viral arthritis, which given the rainy, colder weather Philadelphia is experiencing lately, is flaring up. I do a fair amount of writing in general, but lately I’ve got a lot more to do. I’m trying to do NanoWriMo in addition to NanoBloPoMo this month. I also have a 35+ page masters thesis to write before March. I decided to invest in MacSpeech Dictate to see if it could help me write more and hurt less.

I ordered it off of Amazon, because that was the cheapest place I could find it. I got it on Monday night; it’s now Thursday. I can say that while my wrist is not being used as much, I am not writing more; in fact, I think I’m writing less and my blood pressure is probably higher. There are bursts were the software is practically perfect in transcribing my speech. Other times, it is frustrating absolutely wrong. I’ve managed to work around most of those by going to Spelling Mode and spelling out the words I’m trying to dictate. However, this process, regardless of using Dictate or Spelling Mode is excruciatingly slow for me.

My desk at work is also in a high traffic area, and my coworkers are quite loud. Using the software at work doesn’t work well then due my loud coworkers. I’m hoping that more practice with the software will increase my productivity and lower my frustration with it.