I’m currently reading Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, by Jonathan L. Howard. I’ll have more to say about it later, I’m sure, but last night at dinner, I mentioned to my husband that so far it was a kind of steam-zombie-punk-Faustian tale.*
Sunny’s little brow wrinkled. “Mommy? What’s a Keemponzigump Forest?”
I was too busy gasping in admiration and rummaging for a working pen and a piece of paper to answer.
“Could you repeat that for us, honey?” asked my grinning husband.
“No. Mommy? What is one?”
“That, my love,” I said, scribbling it down on the back of a bill envelope with a broken green crayon, “is the wonderful setting of a future story. Thank you.”
She shrugged her little shoulders, my writer’s child, and sighed in stern impatience. “Welcome. So now what is one, Mommy?”
So I paid for Keemponzigump by explaining zombies and Faust** to a four-year-minus-one-month old in front of my disapproving MIL.
Small price for the use of something so tickly!***
oooOOOooo
Apparently, I write like a man. At least Gender Genie thinks so.
It was pretty close, though. Judging by individual chapters, it appears that when writing from a male character’s POV, I use more ‘typically female’ words—and vice versa.
How interesting is that (to anyone else but me)?
I don’t pretend to understand the theory behind word usage or where they compiled the data to develop the algorithm . . . but it’s fun to try!
Should I be worried about my compulsion to plug various pieces of my work into Internet toys? I already know I write like Vonnegut and my chapters tend to make word clouds that look like unshelled peanuts . . . what more do I want, a bestseller fortuneteller?
Oh, Lord, yes.
But I wouldn’t trade my soul for one, just in case anyone was wondering . . .
___
*With a carnival. It’s an interesting book.
**Steampunk was oddly easy—she loves old trains.
**I’m absolutely certain that elephants on pogo sticks can be found there . . .
Earful of Cider 