The Village Voice: Machine Age: Talking to the Machine hen I was 18, I decided to write a novel by dictating it into a tape recorder. the idea, as I recall, was to avoid the quagmire of writing a first draft, and jump directly to the revision stage. What I found, though, was that in seeking to make my writing process easier, I had made it far more difficult, for the taped draft, once transcribed, was full of endless sentences, rambling digressions, and other conversational misdirections that rendered it literally impossible to read. The trouble with dictation, I came to understand, had to do with the dichotomy between spoken and written speech, the way that, by its nature, talk is loose and formless, while writing cannot help but be more controlled. Even the most natural writer has two distinct voices, one for conversation and one for the page. And in trying to merge mine, I realized that the key to writing was writing, and that there could be no alternatives to putting in the necessary work.