Somebody up there hates me
Ever wonder if the Universe/Fate/deity of your choice likes to mess with your life just to see how you react? That’s a bit how I’m feeling right now. Here I am, still on a high from last year, full of so many ideas that I need a file to keep track of them, and ready to make this writing thing more than a hobby, when WHAM!, I’m a hit by some sort of repetitive stress injury. To be honest, I’ve been having problems with my hands off and on for several months, but this time it seems to be sticking around. So I’ve had to be careful about what I do and how I do it, and rather than give up writing I’ve had to get creative.
For one thing, I’ve been trying to write more in longhand rather than type which, for some reason, doesn’t bother me as much as keyboarding lately. This isn’t as easy as it seems. Although I always carry around a notebook to capture dialog, sentences, or phrases, as inspiration strikes, I haven’t written more than a paragraph by hand in at least 20 years. It’s tough to get back in the habit, not to mention slow. I am much faster when typing than I am writing by hand. It’s also not as easy to revise or write in a haphazard fashion, as I tend to do. I suppose it could be worse—I could be writing two hundred years ago with ink and quill.
The other thing I’ve been trying is voice recognition software. I am testing out Microsoft’s speech recognition tool that comes free with Windows right now with mixed results. In fact, this blog post was dictated entirely using speech recognition. There are a couple of challenges involved and not all of them are the tool’s fault. For me, speaking out loud has always been difficult. I have a disconnect between my mouth and my brain, and as soon as I start to speak I lose the rest of the sentence that was forming in my head. I am not a verbal storyteller, so just speaking aloud takes getting used to. So far, this tool isn’t bad for short things like emails and this post, but I have to work up to longer things like a novel. It really slows things down to have to carefully pronounce each word, not to mention getting into correction battles when the tool doesn’t understand you. I found two main technical issues that frustrate me: the first is the size of the voice buffer. It’s too small. It can handle short sentences but if you start to rattle on, it may truncate some of what you have said when you go to insert it. The second thing is the options that the tool presents if you happen to use unusual words or names. In my latest short story, both my characters have odd names—Emmett and Sky (which gets written as “Emmitt and sky”). It quickly becomes frustrating trying to correct the tool all the time. Sometimes I just give up, and for the purposes of dictation call them Dave and Joe, and then do a find and replace later. Overall, for a free tool it’s not bad. As I continue to use it, I learn new things and can hopefully “train” it a bit more. I understand there are better voice recognition tools out there for purchase, but I will hold off for now and see how this goes.
I suppose that anything I do will be slower than the way I was writing before; it’s about retraining myself, and as I continue to do these things, it will hopefully become easier and faster. The Universe won’t get me down this time!
newest »
Hi Phaney,What ended up working for you? Type of keyboard, mouse etc.? I got a roller mouse which helps me with mousing, but when it comes to typing I still have to be careful and limit my time at the keyboard. I haven't come up with anything else and the ergo expert (at work) basically just suggested the speech recognition software as a solution. But I'm with you in that I find it stops my flow of ideas so I have mixed results with it.
Well, the causes of the strain might be wildly different for us, but here's what worked for me. (This is long and most of it is actually in line with recs so please excuse me; I'm just trying to figure it out for myself, too.)Since I spend most of my hours at the computer, I had to invest in this.
I got a new desk (just a big surface and adjustable legs; IKEA works fine) and a fancy chair (with armrests, although the chair wore out and the replacement's armrests do not adjust as perfectly - which means I don't use them during periods of activity and that, in fact, helps).
I've found that I needed to set my seat low, and my desk surface a lot lower than recommended. It's so low now that I can't comfortably cross my legs underneath but that seems a worthwhile trade. (Still plently of legroom overall, just not, uh, stackable.)
Basically I am ensuring that my primary arm never really bends at an angle of less than 90 degrees; usually I keep it significantly more stretched than that. For mouse work that actually means my mouse moved way towards the back of the desk (towards the edge of the screen) and to the side, which means that my arm is almost straight for that (diagonally to the side, though).
For typing I push my keyboard around a lot. Half the time it also sits at a bit of a distance from me (although not as far as the mouse).
I also sit very close to the desk. It pretty much touches my stomach (or above the navel, rather).
All of this ensures that the desk's edge never digs into my arm at any point and my wrists are usually mostly straight.
Hm, okay. As I am typing this, my hands do hover over the keyboard and the underside of my right arm does slide across the edge, but it's not at much of an angle, no pressure. My keyboard is in mid-position, too.
For some serious typing I often pull it down towards me, in which case the hovering is lower and the balls of my hands just lightly touch the desk's surface. There's definitely no pressure and think that's one of the key points for me.
I prefer a flat keyboard these days (though they're not as flat as some I've seen), and angle it up slightly. Pretty standard, nothing special. But definitely no handrest attached. That never, ever worked for me.
Admittedly, I am noticing now that my hands hover diagonally (90 degrees to each other) with my elbows out, rather than going for the parallel posture I have seen in pictures. I guess this is simply how I type, how my fingers are used to being positioned above the keys, so it won't work for someone who uses one of the established typing systems. Maybe one of those ergonomic keyboards might do the trick in that case? Angled or curved.
My mouse is a Logitech G500. I love the shape; it fits me just right. Mouse shape is a highly personal thing, though. I use it without any of the weights, and without mousepad. (I.e. it slides easily on the desk, but won't launch across the room when I tap it.)
Most importantly, regardless of which mouse I use, I always set the sensitivity high (or the speed to fast, whatever it's called) so that I do not actually have to move the mouse all that far. Just tested this out for you. I'm moving the mouse only about half an inch across the desk to travel from one side of my screen to the other (all 1920 pixels / 20 inches of it). For most mouse actions my arm rests on the desk without moving at all, the wrist only rotates slightly for maximum distance and my fingers do most of the work. Speaking of which, I have a two-fingertip (thumb and fourth) "grip" on the mouse, although there is no gripping involved, just gentle guiding. That means the lower part of my hand is not actually resting on the mouse itself. This is one of those things that divides mouse users into groups, so it might not work for you. Although the second you rest your palm on the mouse you have to move the entire hand for every little cursor twitch. That's tiring out my entire arm all the way up to the shoulder when I test it.
Oh right. Mousewheel for scrolling. It's a gift. You only move one finger. <3
I find that these days I can type or do mouse-heavy work for hours on end without physical strain or cramping up. (To throw a number out there, like... eight hours of writing in a row, although by then my brain is ready to implode.) It's really quite amazing. :3
I know this is a lot of babble and most likely will be redundant and not particularly useful to you, but maybe there's an idea in there anyway.
In the long run what helped was to restructure my computer desk so that my right hand was positioned in a way that avoided strain and pressure. My setup is not even what most generally available advice on the subject would recommend, but it does work for me.
Voice recognition is a great tool but it makes for an entirely different writing mindset. (At least it does for me; I've tried. Just does not work. I need the quiet space in my head for the words to come and sound disrupts that.)
I do admire that you can do this!
Either way, I really hope you find ways to work around the problem. For the obvious reasons (no pain for you!), but also because I am greedy and love your writing. <3