Checking In

Hello friends, Nimue here, sort of.

I’m using a dictation software thing on Keith’s phone because, well, let’s say the experiment in touch typing was not productive and I still can’t read or write using the screen at all.

I’m finding that if I’ve got very big print text, very good light and a magnifying glass, I can read one letter at a time and try to put the word back together but it’s kind of like being at primary school reading age: only with a bigger vocabulary and a lot more frustration. It’s all kind of improving, but very frustrating for me at the moment.

What I’m hoping I can do is work this way to at least get post more often. I’m still figuring this out. I’m not really invested in getting to grips with software for people who can’t see, because hopefully I’m not stuck here and I don’t need to invest that time but we’re just gonna have to wait and find out what happens, so a bit of improvising in the meantime.

It’s plausible for me just doing dictation, but it’s nothing like my usual writing practice and I’m finding that difficult. I’ve managed to create flash fiction by dictation, which was about as much as I could coherently hold in my brain in one go. So working on fiction like over 300 words dictation is going to be prohibitively difficult. I think I’d have to completely relearn how to write. It’s the same for any kind of blog post where I wanted to get into detail or depth in a way that required more being able to go over my own words and polish and reframe and rephrase.

So I guess with a post like this it doesn’t matter that it’s a bit raw and ready because it’s just about communicating what’s going on. However, there’s a lot of things I don’t really feel equipped to handle on these terms.

I am still out and about doing events where I can, honouring the bookings I already had. Obviously, I’m a bit stuck for promoting them because I can’t get online. This is very frustrating, as I probably mentioned, but I can’t check because I can’t see the previous text anyway!

It is what it is, as the progress I’ve got is steady and there has been quite a bit of it. I’m fairly hopeful the reading – perhaps with reading glasses to suit wherever the hell my eyes get to – is going to become feasible in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, it’s decidedly limiting. I might try and share some thoughts about what’s been happening in case anyone else finds it of interest, or of use. 

I miss hearing from people. I miss seeing people’s faces. I miss seeing people’s cats.

All of this challenging, and I’m not going to be good at getting back on comments, so please bear with me on this one. The only way I can get comments at the moment is to get Keith or James to read them to me. Then they would need to reply on my behalf and they’re having to do a lot of extra things to cover for me as it is, so I’m reluctant to put that extra work on them. Thank you for your patience while I fail at admin, but I will try and get back with more things as we go along. Hopefully, there’s a far side to this, and it’s not a terrible distance away and I will return to what passes for normal with me. 

In the meantime, I thank you for your patience and I look forward to being able to talk to you all again because I have missed you.

Thank you.