I Write Like...myself

I've been a little bit in a slump lately. There is no way I'll be able to wrap up the redrafting of Simon & Sally before the deadline hits next week. My motivation to write has hit another low. Somehow my creativity strikes me in different ways. Lately it's been with painting and I found myself catching up on a number of assignments, first making a Klimt-cartoon version of my wife for her birthday (she's big on Klimt). Then I went to work on a promise to a friend I made a long time ago. Next up if the mood still strikes me is the second painting in a series of five representing the five books I want to write about Simon & Sally. Maybe that will get me back on the horse again. Other than that I've been making a number of pencil and color pen sketches, some about Simon & Sally, some not.

But it's not all visually expressed creativity as I found myself pulled towards the latest viral website: I Write Like. It's basically a site where you dump a portion of your written word in (fiction, non-fiction, blog, whatever) and through some mathematical calculations compares you to famous writers and gives you the name of the writer whose work yours most resembles. Very fun if a little arbitrary. I dumped one of my blog entries in there and came up with David Foster Wallace, a 'post modern hysterical realistic' writer according to wikipedia. He alledgedly commited suicide and was known for his examination of the human condition. Admittedly I like to delve into the psyche myself, to see what makes me tick, but then again, don't we all when we write blogs? My actual writing on Simon & Sally invoked resemblances to Ian Fleming and Kurt Vonnegut, and that's only of the next two times I ran the 'I Write Like' machine.

I'm careful to not take this too seriously, especially because I know I have an over-nurtured sense of associative reasoning. It's too easy to say that I'm writing the next James Bond, or that my style resembles that of the early 20th century fiction writers. After all, I bet if I ran my collective work through the site a hundred times it would probably come up with fifty to a hundred different writers. So what does this say? I guess we are all influenced to a certain degree by those who went before us, but ultimately we mold our stories from our own collection of experiences, both real and fictitious. So we write like we are. I write like me. And I wouldn't want it any other way. After all, what's the point in being the next Stephen King or J.K.Rowling? They're still here, and following in someone's footsteps who has already died (like all three of my so-called style buddies) just puts unnecessary pressure to perform.

And that's the last thing I need now...pressure to perform. I just need to keep tuned to my Muses and wait when they are finished window shopping in the mall of my visual expression and return to the road of literature.