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Thursday, July 15, 2010

"I write like..."

I pasted an old blog post into the "I Write Like" site and they gave me this badge:

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!



While I know this is a ridiculous comparison--based, I'm guessing, on my use of lots of parentheses and dashes?--and possibly even insulting (read, "convoluted and digressive")--not to mention generated by a machine that serves a commercial, not artistic, interest, nonetheless I now have a little genius halo glowing around my head.

MacArthur grant people?
Over here!

PART TWO
And then I submitted a boring chunk of pedantic hogwash, written for work at a 7th-grade reading level, and the analyzer told me I write like Dan Brown.
Bingo!

Try it and let me know who the machine says you write like.
at

18 comments:

  1. DaniaJuly 15, 2010 at 11:17 AM

    I posted the beginning of a short story I wrote and got the David Foster Wallace badge. Then I posted one of my blog entries and received a William Gibson badge. I haven't read much of either. Maybe I should, but glad there was no Dan Brown (even with all his money).

    ReplyDelete
  2. rrJuly 15, 2010 at 12:47 PM

    Dear god. I put in a blog post and was told James Joyce.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MarzJuly 15, 2010 at 1:21 PM

    After it brought me Stephen King, I became furious and, midst much weeping and gnashing of teeth, hammered out the first nonsense that came to mind:

    Your mother is a computer; your father a hairless mole.

    What does that make you?

    A fly. No, THE fly.

    And I'm not even kidding you:

    William Shakespeare

    ReplyDelete
  4. MarzJuly 15, 2010 at 1:28 PM

    OMG.

    I just entered a lengthy excerpt from Shatners autobiography;

    Margaret Atwood!

    ReplyDelete
  5. poodletailJuly 15, 2010 at 1:51 PM

    I entered a letter written to my nephew when he was in jail:

    David Foster Wallace

    What do you make of that?

    ReplyDelete
  6. rrJuly 15, 2010 at 2:08 PM

    Hahahahahaha! I pasted in some Shakespeare, it said Shakespeare. I pasted in some James Joyce, it said... Leo Tolstoy!

    ReplyDelete
  7. binkJuly 15, 2010 at 4:24 PM

    When I submitted a very clearly written piece of work, I was told I write like James Joyce. When I submitted some nonsense writing (remember the 'write your own pope book' using all "a" words?) I was told I write like Kurt Vonnegut!

    The really sad thing though is the writing I was looking to submit--my big B mystery--has mysteriously disappeared. I hadn't been able to find it on my desktop recently, so I did a very exacting search today... and poof!!!... no where to be found. I'm baffled.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousJuly 15, 2010 at 4:28 PM

    I put in the first page of my book for children and it gave me Vladimir Nabokov - disturbing!
    Bookworm

    ReplyDelete
  9. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooJuly 16, 2010 at 1:44 AM

    I'm yet another James Joyce....but I'm not! ...I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day....

    Heh!

    ReplyDelete
  10. FrescaJuly 16, 2010 at 3:23 PM

    Oh! All these responses were fun. Thanks!

    DANIA: Yes, if only my work writing brought in the bucks, like Dan Brown's...

    RR: So, if you write like Joyce and Joyce writes like Tolstoy (!), then you write like Tolstoy!

    M'RET: Ah, yes, one of Shakespeare's great Fly sonnets.
    Margaret Atwood & Shatner = 2 great Canadian writers.

    POODLE: I realize I don't really know you as a writer. (Do you use a lot of parentheses?)

    BINK: Oh, too bad about your lost work. You must rally like Carlyle and write the thing again. (Hopefully it's not as long as his burned-up history of the French Revolution.)

    BOOKWORM: Nabokov for children. I can't imagine!

    MANFRED: As long as it wasn't Ezra Pound, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  11. LeeJuly 16, 2010 at 6:54 PM

    The problem with this, of course, is there is no "you don't write like anybody important" response. I wrote:

    "Hi. How are you? I am fine. Later!"

    It said I write like Hemingway!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. FrescaJuly 16, 2010 at 8:57 PM

    Well, LEE, Hemingway seems spot on to me.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Bianca Castafiore?July 17, 2010 at 12:23 PM

    H. P. Lovecraft.

    "American literature's greatest bad writer."

    sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  14. FrescaJuly 17, 2010 at 1:11 PM

    BIANCA: I've never read Lovecraft, but you are a GOOD writer!

    ReplyDelete
  15. JenniferJuly 19, 2010 at 9:14 AM

    I got Stephen King and I can live with that, to be honest. :) I'm sure the general lack of hyphens, parentheses and extra clauses doomed me to my fate. Though I will never match King's standards as he insists on a strict ban on adverbs. I cannot do this, she asserts mournfully.

    ReplyDelete
  16. kluksJuly 21, 2010 at 6:14 PM

    I entered one random blog writing, although since I am a new blogger, my randomness is limited, and I got Kurt Vonnegut. It's a fun delusion of writing ability.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The CrowJuly 21, 2010 at 7:36 PM

    I tried this a few days ago, submitting 5 of my blog posts: Stephen King twice, James Joyce, Margaret Atwood and Mario Puzo.

    Hah!

    ReplyDelete
  18. FrescaJuly 22, 2010 at 6:44 PM

    THANKS, all! These are fun!

    ReplyDelete