Link to July 16 San Jose Mercury News article, "I Write Like erupts online, authors scratch heads".
Excerpt: The recently launched I Write Like has one simple gimmick: You paste a few paragraphs that exemplify your writing, then click "analyze" and—poof!—you get a badge telling you that you write like Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Chuck Palahniuk.
OK, so Retiring Guy decided to chunk the first page of his most recent weekly 10-page letter to Mom, an independent 89 year old who has never used a computer.
Section 1: I write like......
Here’s an indication of how excited JoAnna and I are to be reunited with Eddie. We’re sitting in terminal 3 of O’Hare Airport with 40 minutes to spare before he arrives. It could have been more than an hour’s wait since this flight is 27 minutes ahead of schedule. The plane must have the benefit of a strong tailwind.
Section 2: I write like...
In our defense, we built some wiggle room into our own schedule in case we encountered any delays. Always a possibility on Chicago-area “expressways”, no matter what time of day. In an unexpected change of pace, however, I felt the need to accelerate as we approached O’Hare. Let’s just say that drivers weren’t observing the posted speed limit. Not even close.
Section 3: I write like...
The constant lane-changers were out in full force. I wonder if they drive this way just for sport, for the challenge of threading their way through three or four lanes of traffic without even a light tap of the brake pedal. Crazy stuff!
Andy didn’t accompany us as he had other plans.
“I haven’t seen any of my friends all week,” he lamented.
And he probably wouldn’t have been much in the mood for a road trip anyway. Even a four-hour workday leaves him wiped out for a few hours after he returns home. OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. How about…just in the mood to chill and watch TV. He’s not used to repetitive manual labor with a hot sun bearing down on him, particularly in a setting that provides no trees for shade. According to Andy, Jim (his boss) gets impatient if he asks for a clarification when given directions. Andy simply rolls with the punches. Why engage in unnecessary bickering and antagonize the person who provided you with a much-needed summer job. From the details Andy supplies, it sounds as though Jim’s main complaint is with the finicky woman who hired him to build a deck. She wants the project done just so – which she has every right to demand.
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