I Write Like L. Frank Baum

I write like
L. Frank Baum

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

Funny! I discovered this website “I Write Like” thanks to blogging friend Karen. You paste a section of your writing into the applet, which then analyzes your writing style and compares it with other authors.

I got L. Frank Baum. That’s funny, because I have never read one of his books. But at least he was a New Yorker! He was from Chittenango, NY, a town along Route 5 that was actually founded by my ancestors.

The section of writing I had analyzed was from an older essay I wrote, “Eating Crow.” I wrote it early one morning, before the clamor and clutter of the day had struck. I like the piece. I’ll include it here for you.

Eating Crow

Where did that expression come from? It has negative connotations mostly, I suppose, because of the crow. It is early morning and the world is still quiet. The rustle of cars on the road hasn’t begun outside my walls yet. I am sipping coffee, pondering whether I should start the laundry early. A group of crows is in the neighborhood. I can hear their cackles all the way down the street and in my yard. It is strange how sounds echo so clearly very late at night and in the early morning. Why is that? Is the air thinner at those times so that sounds echo more easily?

The American crow is a despised bird. Well, at least, I despise them. And a group of crows is not called a group, it’s called a murder. How appropriate.

Crows are pesky birds. They drive out all the other songbirds in the summer. Now that it is autumn, and most of the songbirds have migrated or are in hiding, the crow finds advantage and comes boldly out of the woodwork. The crow is such a brassy, crass bird. There is a superiority in their eye when they stare down at you from their perches in the highest trees. Any seeds (or dog food) that I leave out for other critters are promptly stolen by these murders of crows. They descend arrogantly– right in front of me– in a black cloud of greasy feathers to gobble up the treats. I chase them away and they flap half-heartedly– just enough to move out of stone-throwing distance. But even before I’ve turned my back, they are back again, eating another’s seeds. My cats are terrified of the birds and refuse to chase them. Some help they are. They probably pay off the crows with cat food, begging the birds to allow them to stay here. There’s probably a whole mafia ring of crows controlling my property underneath my nose.

For the past few years, Upstate cities have been plagued by murders of crows. You can’t shoot them out of the city trees and off apartment balconies, so people have resorted to banging pots, blowing sirens, and aiming laser lights at them. This is in the hopes of disturbing their nesting places. It works, temporarily. The murders of crows flee the cities like a CEO on vacation, and head for the hills– my hills. So now I must cope with them– until next summer when the crows descend to feast upon the city again.

Some folks say crows are smart. Aesop’s fable, The Crow and the Pitcher, is about a wise bird. In the story, a thirsty crow comes upon a pitcher with some water at the bottom. His beak cannot reach the water. The crow drops pebbles in the pitcher, one by one, to raise the water up to a level where he can drink. I think it’s an odd story, because wouldn’t the water trickle down around the pebbles back to the bottom? The stupid crow should have used a big rock, that will raise the water for ya.

Noah sent out a raven from the ark. I have wondered if this was a crow. Crows are sometimes called ravens. Noah’s dove had returned, but the raven never did. Noah took that to mean that the raven remained alive, and there was dry land where the bird could live and eat. I know this is true because crows never die and they always go to the best feeding places first and never share.

When I was a kid, my mother constructed a scarecrow for her garden. Who ever came up with that idea first? I wonder if it ever worked. The crows completely ignored our scarecrow. They used him like a Charmin toilet roll, that murder of crows.

I suppose crows do serve a purpose. Somewhere, in the great universal scheme of delicate ecological balance, I know they must serve a purpose. Don’t ask me what it is, though. I just might cast my vote to bring to extinction those murders of crows.

They are quieter now. I can barely hear them far up the hill in the back. The cars outside are starting to rustle and overpower the ubiquitous cackling. I guess I should get the laundry going now.

Photo Hunters: Book

I LOVE books! Books were my “escape” when I was a kid. Books are now a vital source of information, for me and my kids. But the best book of all, commonly known as The Book of books, is this– the book that changed my life:

This is my New King James Bible. I’ve had it for about… 21 years now! You can see the usefulness of duct tape at work here.

I’ve gotten a few news ones since this one, but I can’t seem to get rid of this. It has years and years of notes, commentaries, and cool doodles I’ve written over the years. To throw this away would be like removing an arm or a leg. And the message inside this book is more precious than anything!

Here’s the book open to my favorite part of the Bible– Hebrews 10. I just love Hebrews! And the message in Chapter 10 speaks to my heart– that Jesus the Messiah is our mediator and all our lawless acts are forgiven. Yippee!! Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

How did your Photo Hunters go today? Leave your link in the comments!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and… Time

I am spending the better part of the days blogging, writing PayPerPost-its, or marketing my blog. I am amazed at how much time and effort it takes! But it is all worth it. I’m up late at night, blogging away, because this is the only real time I have to myself without incessant interruptions. Mozzarella cheese slices and hot pepperoncini keeps me going. I don’t know what it is about pepperoncini these days, but I love it.

Anyway, back to writing about writing… itis amazing, this new age of free-lance and self-promotion that has cropped up with the rise of the Internet. These days, anybody can be an author. I am reminded of Harriet Beecher Stowe. She, too, sought free-lance writing work to supplement her husband’s income. She eventually “made it” by penning Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’ve never read the entire book (too many southern colloquialisms for this Yankee brain) but there is something to be said for “being in the right place at the right time.” The world was ripe for her book, and she for the income.

Blogging is so different, yet so similar. We are all looking to “make it” (in income if not in fame) but there still exists that necessary essence of “being in the right place at the right time.” Timing truly is everything. How many award-winning authors and writers will we never know about because of wrong timing?

Here’s hoping I am not one of them.