Friday, July 16, 2010

I write like...


Mary just called me about a website she heard about on NPR. It's called I Write Like... and you submit a writing sample and instantly it tells you what famous author you write like.

For personal writing, I cut and pasted the "Remembering Bud" entry below and my almost instant analysis was that I write like David Foster Wallace. Actually I'd not heard of him, but here's what Wikepedia says:

David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest,[2][3] which Time included in its All-Time 100 Greatest Novels list (covering the period 1923–2006).[4]

I read on and saw he committed suicide. That might not be a good omen for me.

Undeterred I submitted the first five paragraphs of an article I wrote for a trade magazine. It came back that I write like James Joyce! Wow, I hope my clients appreciate that.

So give it a try, and let me know who you write like.

ps. the illustration is James Joyce.

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