Friday, December 31, 2010

Um, really? I write like...

So yesterday I battled the stupid ugly flower bed and visited the Revenue office (do people still call it that? I do.) to get the tags for my car (luckily, as they are closed today) and all I have to do today is clean my entire house. I mean, I definitely want to start out the New Year with a clean house. I don't eat black eyed peas or cabbage or ham hock or greens or whatever it is I'm supposed to eat for health, wealth, or luck (and clearly I reap the benefits of that decision every year), but I do not want to be stuck cleaning house all year long so I'm not taking any chances. If it doesn't get done today, I'm not doing it tomorrow but it needs to be done.

Today I am trying to make myself revise. I don't like that. It's harder than writing. And that's hard.
So instead, I am blogging and playing.  I read about this site which analyzes your writing to tell you who you write like. It took three tries to get someone I knew.

First, with my favorite story so far, it was David Foster Wallace. I don't know who that is.
Second, with a blog post it was William Gibson. I don't know him either.
And I was starting to get a little alarmed: I write like a dude?
And third with my second favorite story I hit:

I write like
Stephenie Meyer
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

And I have no idea what to think, but I am unable to argue with success. Although I did not love Twilight, I read all the books and I would like to be a multi-gazillionaire. Then I noticed that my sample actually included the word "Bella" as a dog's name...so maybe that doesn't work like like I hoped it would. Still the first sample didn't turn up Jim Butcher and it used a character and term for his made up world...

I decided to try it again with a piece of a different story. The result:


I write like
Cory Doctorow
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Dissatisfied, I tried it again with the purple paint story and this came up:


I write like
Douglas Adams
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Douglas Adams? Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy? From the purple paint story? What? What I'd like to know is what the options are. I mean, out of five tries, I hit one woman. And I'm a woman. I think I use womanish words. At least it didn't give me Gregory Maguire. Still, it's fun to see what this turns up and now I need to check out some books from the library: David Foster Wallace, Willam Gibson, and Cory Doctorow.

1 comment:

Elizabeth Ann said...

Happy New Year! Keep up the good writing - we enjoy it....