who do you write like, anyway?

The other day, I consolidated my completely unfinished, unpolished, rough rough rough draft, and the total (or should I say "working" total, har har) is 36 pages.  36 whole pages of what-the-heck-is-this-mess.  It's fabulous.  I mean, it's complete garbage (how do you translate ideas into narrative again?), but I've never written 36 pages of any one thing in my life.

In other news, I recently discovered a very strange, counter-productive site called "I Write Like," which tells you just that.  I put in part of my rough rough rough 36 pages. The result?

I write like
Stephen King

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

Really.  Interesting.  Have I ever read Stephen King?  Nope.  Thinking this was maybe a fluke, I skipped to a section I wrote a while ago, and got this:

I write like
Neil Gaiman

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

That's more like it.  Also, how did I get from Stephen King to Neil Gaiman?  Naturally, I had to keep experimenting.  So, in the next section I got this:

I write like
Annie Rice

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

I'm pretty sure that's not even her name, people.  Seriously, I clicked the link and it said, "Did you mean Anne Rice?"

At one point, I even wrote like Dan Brown.  Ha!

My personal favorite:

I write like
Charles Dickens

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

Honestly.

You know what would have been easier?  Using the whole 36 pages.

Here goes...

I write like
Neil Gaiman

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

Gaiman wins.  I can live with that.

And now you know.