MOTUS A.D.: I Write Like...Everybody!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

I Write Like...Everybody!

It was so hot and humid yesterday that neither Lady M nor I ventured out.

The humidity makes MO cranky and it’s been known to distort my image refractions ( exhibit A, left), which may partially explain Lady M’s crankiness.

So I spent the afternoon cruising my favorite web sites and I ran across this at Instapundit: “HOW TO BE A BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH.”

It couldn’t have come at a better time, because I’ve been thinking – ever since that Dr. Laura Ingra-ham mix up - about how I could become a world famous author of a best book of the month.

Plus, I’ve always wanted an “Instalanche” and I figure linking to one of Glen’s posts can’t hurt my chances.

Anyway, the link takes you to a totally cool, absolutely free, online tool called “I Write Like” for analyzing your writing style. You just put some of your writing into the box, hit the “Analyze” button and it tells you which world famous author you write like! I decided to give it a try – you should too.

So I took one of last week’s posts “A Broadway Celebration of the O’s” and it said I write like:

"Margaret Atwood"

I’m not sure what to make of that since she writes some pretty creepy stuff like “The Handmaids Tale.” I think she’s a feminist. And not in a good way.

Maggie & Maggie with Pop: from her Blog

Then I ran my post: “Guns and Poses” through and it said I write like:

"Kurt Vonnegut"

Kurt wrote some creepy stuff too. I think he was crazy. Also not in an altogether good way.

Kurt looks like he was fun!

Next, I tried my post: “More Body Scanners In: The G-Block.” You remember that one, don’t you? It was the fun one where we all practiced droppin’ all of our ending “G’s.” Anyway, that post said I write like:

“Michelle Obama”

I’m really not comfortable with the way this is shaping up.

Fashion Forward Writing in Vogue: March 2009

I decided to stop, as I was starting to scare myself. So far I’ve got ‘creepy, crazy, angry feminist fashion-icon.’ That’s not exactly what I’m going for.

Butt, the afternoon was still young, and curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to analyze the writings of some of my Team mates.

First I ran a few selections from Toes book: “The Plan: Big Ideas for Transforming America” through the author-ator. It said Toes writes like:

"Karl Marx,"

except slightly more radical.

Then I analyzed Axe-Man’s book: “The Impossibility of Dreams”, it said he writes like:

"Timothy Leary,"

except not quite as lucidly.

This is starting to be a lot of fun!

So next I analyzed some of Gibbsy’s talking points memos and it was a tie! He writes like:

"Mohammed "Baghdad Bob" Saeed al-Sahaf"

AND,

"Joseph Goebbels"

Since I was on a roll, I decided to analyze Lady M’s Princeton thesis (it’s apparently the only thing she has ever written). The results indicated MO writes like:

“www.bestdissertation.com”

Lady M’s Princeton graduation photo: pre-World-Famous Fashion Icon and Busy Mom™

I read the whole thesis, and I think I’d have asked for a refund, although she did graduate. It does make you wonder just a bit about the cost of an Ivy League education.

Butt the biggest surprise came when I analyzed passages from Big Guy’s 3 books (that’s right, he has three books to his credit: 2 of them autobiographies!): “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” and “Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise.” Whew! Those titles alone are a mouthful! No wonder he needs TOTUS.

“Dreams from My Father” or from somewhere

After a long analysis, the results came back and said definitively that Big Guy writes like:

"William Ayers"

That one really surprised me, because Bill Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood. I didn’t think Big Guy even knew him well enough to recognize him on the street let alone learn his writing style.

I should have stopped there, but I was having so much fun I decided to try one more: a short chapter from the novel I’m working on: totally fictional, not based upon any person living or dead and – hopefully - a future best book of the month:

His first lunch with her was at the Big White House. Her maid took him to the garden in the back. He sat at a long wooden table with his back to the main house. She came out a few minutes later and sat across from him. They did not speak.

Her gardeners brought baskets of fruit from the garden and bottles of warm red wine. They piled the fruit in the center of the table and placed a bottle of wine next to each of them. She moved closer to the pile of fruit.

They filled their bellies, then he leaned back under the hot sun and drifted off to sleep, remembering Spain in summer and that night in Chicago. When he awoke, she and the food were gone.