Hi, Sheree, it is nice to meet someone else that is trying for it too. I have been at this for a long time. I always wanted to be a realtime writer since I started school back in the early '90s. I had a huge fear of letting anyone see my writing for the longest time. I started doing CART two years ago and I would say it took a whole year before I got comfortable, really comfortable, with the fact that someone was watching my screen. Actually depending on it.

I took some private captioning training with Janet Burr in 2005, but just could not get that winning script, so put it on the shelf for a while. I am back at it again, though, because I really want to caption. I just moved from Michigan to Texas and they do not offer reciprocity for my CSR or RPR here so that would require me recertifying to do depo work, which I really DO NOT want to do, depo work that is. I love CART, so I will just stay doing that, but sometimes it is slow in the summer, which I would like to supplement with captioning.

The main thing I try to do is write short. Everything in one stroke if possible. I don't use a lot of phrases, because I wasn't taught to use them, but I am incorporating some that don't conflict. Changing my writing was the biggest thing I did, and it has taken years. Speed, speed, speed is really important too, so I work on writing faster and writing short. I enrolled in Realtime Coach last year and it helped a lot. I took the CRR and only missed by 10, which is huge for me because I couldn't even turn it in it was so bad the first three times I took it. I also purchased a boot camp for speedbuilding put on by Mark K. It was high-high speeds. That really helped too. Then I started making my own high-speed dictation tapes. I really believe that the super-duper high-speed practice has helped me.

Basically what I do for practice is write a short segment until I get it right and then move on. I am doing a station out of Michigan because I got a job offer there that just fell through(bummer), and I have a lot of briefs for the stuff there, and I grew up there. This particular station has video clips online so I just use those. The longest one is 3 minutes, so it is perfect. I am hoping the job offer will pop back up in the new year.

How about you? Were you doing official or freelance work? Have you done realtime before? What have you been doing to practice? Seven months really isn't that long, so keep at it.