πŸ—£οΈ πŸ“± How a free transcription voice recorder is helping me write jokes (about pissing myself).


Hi funny people,

How's yer day? If you are feeling big things with the news these days, I hope you take moments of rest for you. I took some time and I peed a little playing the most low key bit of basketball with friends, so... yeah. It might not go how you want, but breaks are good, even if you have to do more laundry.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing you on Saturday for our joke feedback session.

I've not been writing much myself for a while now. I would get going on little stints of journaling or writing jokes, but had trouble keeping up with it regularly.

I have started to voice record my thoughts as a way to make my writing process fit my life a bit better.

I have a Google Pixel 4a as a phone, and the recorder app that comes on it converts your voice notes into a transcription. I then send the .txt file to Obsidian and am able to review and edit my thoughts.

I'm finding this to be a lower barrier approach than writing in my notebook and am slowly getting into the habit of capturing more ideas and stories.

If you don't have an app on your phone that does this, there are paid apps out there and free ones that might meet your needs. Consider that cloud apps don't always have the greatest privacy when deciding what notes to take with them.

For the record, Obsidian is a free notetaking tool that let's you link your notes together. It has a sort of feverish cult following in the world of productivity Youtube videos (which, sadly, are my Kryptonite). You can download on to your laptop or phone. If you want the two to sync, you pay $10USD/month.

I'm clearly not paid to mention these tools. They are just what I have found to work for me so far (and sharing this information makes me feel less bad about the horrific number of hours I have spent looking up productivity apps instead of writing).

I love the aesthetic of sitting in a coffee shop and writing in a notebook with a favourite pen, but this process is helping kickstart my writing, so I'm going with it.

This might not be the process for you, but hopefully it is a reminder to be open to different ways of working if you feel stuck.

Want to share your writing with us?

Next Workshop

We will see you tomorrow, Saturday October 28th 10:00 AM PST, on Zoom for our informal joke writing meetup. You can come even if you don't have goals or jokes you are actively working on, you can join in and give feedback to others. Can't make this one? Next one is on November 11th, so mark your calendar.

Stay funny and see you tomorrow!

Em

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πŸ’™ Share jokes online πŸ’™ We have a Cathartic Laughs online session this Saturday at 10am-noon PST on Zoom. Sessions run every other week.

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Em Cooper

Comedian, facilitator and event producer. I love jokes and how they can help us move through hard stuff. Sign up for the Cathartic Laughs newsletter for tips on how to joke about the curve balls life throws our way.

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