If speaking is writing, you’ll want to make it easy to transfer your spoken thoughts into written ideas that you can share. One way is to record yourself speaking. This is useful when you do the Hostwriting process, when you talk to others (conversations, lectures, and so on), but also for talking to yourself.
It can be a little weird and uncomfortable to talk to yourself, but with practice that will fade over time. So in this exercise, you’ll practice recording yourself. Find a time and a place that you can feel comfortable talking to yourself out loud, without feeling self-conscious about the way others will interpret what you’re doing. Find your phone or computer’s recording app and hit record.
If you have something you’re working on writing, start talking about that. Might as well work on something relevant and important to you right now!
If you don’t have something you need or want to write at the moment, no problem! Just start talking about anything at all! Simply developing the skill and habit of talking to yourself about something you’re interested in will be the main benefit you’ll take away from this exercise.
Keep it small and simple. Just talk for 5 minutes or so. If you have the time and the interest, feel free to keep going. But there’s no need to - just practicing is what matters.
Benefits
If you try talking about your ideas on a regular basis, you’ll notice two things.
First, you can dictate a large amount of your draft. I suspect that you already have at least 80% of the ideas you want to share, and can say them easily out loud. It will be rough, and you’ll need to revise what you said, but it’s a great start. (Note: When dictating, consider using a speech-to-text program and/or simple audio recording software. Audacity is simple, free audio recording and editing software.)
Second, you automatically surface difficult points in your argument as well as new questions or areas to explore further. This is valuable information, and you’ll automatically start thinking about those points and ideas and how to resolve or explore them.
These benefits happen in a reasonably easy and comfortable way. It’s much easier to talk to a recorder than to stare at a blank screen. With this simple tool in hand, your writing process will be easier, faster, and more fun. You’ll also find that your final work, whether it’s a blog post or a book or even something else, like a presentation, is more complete and successful than it might otherwise have been.
What's next?