Who do you write like?

Apparently I write like Cory Doctorow.

This is according to the Web site I Write Like, which analyzes your writing and tells you what famous author your writing is like.

I guess being compared to any famous author is flattering, and since I was consistently compared to Mr. Doctorow, maybe there's some truth there. (Or maybe this is another ego trip.)

I was also compared to Stephenie Meyer, author of Twilight. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

It's fun, even if it's not entirely accurate. Apparently "Norwegian Wood," written by John Lennon, sounds like Raymond Chandler. Really?

"I didn't ask to see you. You sent for me.

I don't mind your ritzing me or drinking

your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. I don't mind

your showing me your legs. They're very

swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their

acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like

my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over

them during the long winter evenings.

But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."

-The Big Sleep

Ok, maybe. They both sound like women haters. And I always knew that song was about burning her place down!

And apparently Walt Whitman sounds like James Joyce. Maybe Joyce sounds like Whitman? And why can't Whitman sound like Whitman?

Anyway, now I'm going to have to read something by Doctorow to see if it's true.

And BTW, according to I Write Like, this post is like Stephen King.

Hmmm.

Ok, something positive

“A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?”

From Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

(Isn't this exactly what you imagined he looked like?)

Can you imagine that the grass and leaves swaying and dancing in the wind is a conscious celebration of god?

Photo is Grass in A Minor by Drew

Almost Summer

I wish I could bottle this cool breeze and save it for later. Because I know we’re going to need it.

I don’t want it to go to waste, so I’m going to close my eyes and enjoy it. It’s like cool caresses on my skin.

(Lower Castaic Lake, CA)

“The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,

It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.”

From Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.