If you are wondering about the previous entry, here’s the story:

I found this fun new program called “I Write Like.”  Here’s the link:

http://iwl.me/

The idea is that you put in a chunk of your writing and “coding robots” tell you which famous writer your writing most resembles.  Look, I’m a sucker for things like this.  I simply love Pandora (www.pandora.com), which is the “musical genome project where you put in a song or a musical artist you like and they create a radio channel for you that assimilates that particular sound.  I’m just amazed with the techno nerds who sit around all day and think of these things, then let them out into the world for free.  I mean, I’m a writer.  We’re used to thinking we’re writing for pay only to find in the end we’re actually writing for free.  I guess the issue is one of intent.

So I put in a representative chunk of THE FOURTH HOUSE and lo and behold it spit out, “You write like Stephen King.”  This fascinates me, and not from an egotistical standpoint.  The program is not saying to me or to anyone for that matter, “You are as GOOD as Stephen King (or Maya Angelou or John Grisham, etc.); you simply express yourself in a similar fashion.

The fascination is that I, like everyone else, tend to think of writers for their choice of genre rather than how they execute.  When I think of King, I think of horror, although we all know he’s done non-horror things like “Shawshank Redemption” and “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”, which I’m reading right now.

The fact that I’m reading King now is rather ironic, for it gives me a fresh chance to look at his prose and how he turns a phrase, and damn; there really is a similarity.  The problem is, when you write a query or a book proposal, editors and agents encourage you to compare yourself to other famous writers, which is always a gut-wrenching exercise in ego versus self-loathing.  Truth is, they are most likely looking to pigeonhole you stylistically using this method, rather than something as scientific as this.  What I’m trying to say is, I doubt when I turn in my next piece of romantic comedy they’ll understand when I say, “I’ve been told I write very much like Stephen King.”  They’ll spend all their time reading, thinking, “But when does the monster come out and chew her neck off?”

Unexpected family business took me back to the land of my birth.  Seems Aunt Jean is feeling under the weather — not entirely unusual for an 89-year-old.  Her 91-year-old boyfriend is feeling even punker than her, which isn’t helping the situation any.  Cousin Joyce tried to pry her out of the house to move her down to South Carolina, but Jean was having none of it.  It’s sort of like those last few people in Centralia — also Mountain City Regional people — the ones who refuse to leave their homes despite the fact the fires of hell are raging in their very basements and they’re being offered hundreds of thousands for bungalows that aren’t worth two cents.  In short, we coalcrackers have to be extracted from our homes with the jaws of life, no matter how ridiculous the situation.  It’s a territorial thing.Observations: There’s no one there.  I mean, I haven’t seen the population numbers; I don’t have to.  There’s just no one there anymore.  See, I’m used to crowds here on the Jersey Shore.  Go out to eat and you have to avoid certain places because they’re always crowded.  Plan to go to certain entertainment venues and all you worry about is parking.

In Lantenengo County, this is no longer a problem.  It’s a shame, too, because some people are giving it an honest-to-goodness try.  I’ve been to more nice dining spots and lounges there in the past year or two than ever before, but it doesn’t seem to matter.  There is simply no audience.  And you can see it in the proprietors’ eyes.  They’ve spruced up their place, they’ve replaced the wooden plank that had been sitting on cinderblocks on the floor with a real, fully-stocked bar with name-brand liquors, but … there are no customers.

I don’t know what the future holds.  I do know that I can now go to almost any place in the county, order a Tanqueray and tonic, and not get the stink eye.  I could probably even order something with a little umbrella in it and not get beaten up.  They’re trying; they really are.  But the young folks are all moving out.  Nahas Avenue still looks like a bomb hit it.  The mall is nearly empty.  If I knew how to save it I’d share the secret, but I don’t; I simply don’t.

Now available even at Club 21!