fine whine

Bookblog has updated their Gender Genie to better reflect the differences between fiction, nonfiction and blog entries. For those not in the know, a report was published in Nature revealing a rather accurate algorithm that determined a writer's gender based on certain common words and their usage. More information is provided on the Genie page.

Anyway, according to the new and improved Gender Genie, I write like a girl. I sent my previous entry though the paces as a blog entry, fiction and nonfiction and scored the hat trick. Female every time. This entry, however, is considered masculine by the site. Go figure. So don't buy me that skirt quite yet.

On and off I have fancied myself to be a writer. Over the years I've written a couple stories, but rarely without prompting of some sort or another. Deadlines and assignments provided rudimentary inspiration, but lacking those I found only a dearth of creative ideas. But then just yesterday one struck me, and I'd like to flesh it out. It would be a short story, and I'd carefully craft it to age well at least for the next ten years or so.

That wouldn't be much of a challenge except for the fact that it's about a guy (or gal, it could go either way really) whose frustration with an apparent inability to get a tech job leads inadvertently turns him into a cobbler. That is, a mender of shoes and boots.

It would be an amusing story. The premise is lightly humorous, ironic that the guy (or gal, of course) searching for a "position utilizing technical expertise" ends up doing low-tech but highly-skilled labor. More humor appears more directly in the form of asinine if not outrageous questions asked at one interview. Questions that have nothing to do with technical acumen and everything with, well, something, perhaps. Zen koan-like, but with a demented slant. Like, "If you and your extended family were stranded in a mountain pass by an airplane accident, who would be eaten first and how would it be organized?" or even "Which color crayon does a polar bear draw with?" After one such interview, protagonist would be walking back in the rain (ooh, how clich�d!) and have a sole or heel fall off one shoe, causing dampness and much consternation.

A well-placed significant other or good pal would happen across our protagonist nailing the errant piece back on and then putting the shoe back on, satisfied with a repair well done. Said significant other or pal would then pass this on as an anecdote, and virally it would spread until our surprised protagonist is swamped with FoaF (friend of a friend) shoes needed work. Unwilling to be compensated at first, the protagonist eventually realizes that a comfortable living can be made in a major urban area repairing the shoes of people with lots of disposable income.

And all the while a solitary computer gathers dust in the corner.

But I don't really feel like writing such a story right now. Let me know if you do, I guess.

Check this out: last year 700 people wrote 50,000 word novels. Nothing remarkable about that, per se, other than the fact that they did it all, start to finish, in the month of November. You see, it was 'National Novel Writing Month', and as members of the Na No Wri Mo challenge, they ultimately emerged exhausted but victorious. I found the link surfing through old college acquaintances (read one's novel at his site), and I have decided to do it this year. Of course, now I just have to put off thinking about novel writing until around October.

... that John Malkovich has never seen Con Air? He says he's not among his greatest fans. Not to say he's averse to seeing his own work, but he much prefers to be doing it, not watching it.

I'd agree with him, except that I seem to enjoy reading what I've read here on this site, and especially old school papers I wrote. They're hilarious.

So what is it that keeps me awake at night? Is it my grand schemes? There's always another page, or chapter, or book that I can read. I have a movie backlog probably around a hundred, spread over my laserdiscs, DVDs and tapes off of TV.

There's always the Great American Novel I should start writing. I could be writing code for this website. I have links that I need to blog for ketchup so that I can stay caught up. Emails that have been typed in my head over and over won't get sent 'til I input and submit them. There are people I ought to write to, messages I should have sent months or years ago.

I've got conversations that I could rehearse in my head even more exhaustively. I could call people up, wake them and converse. My resume and the help wanted pages almost cry out loud to me. As to my dirty dishes, though they cry out in a non-verbal fashion detected more by the nose than the ears.

I wrote a poem somewhat about this once...

It's easier on TV

It's easier on TV
the hero smiles
no worries about taxes
or mortgage payments
or missed appointments
or airplanes crashing
or broccoli in his teeth
or feet in his mouth
or starving children

or dying relatives
or rush hour traffic
or noisy appliances
or paperwork due yesterday
or bumps in the night
or bumps in the road
or flat tires
or dirty laundry
or hour wages

or paper cuts
or alarms slept through
or obligations forgotten
or performance declines
or oil changes
or oil prices changing
or stubbed toes
or burnt toast
or stuffy nose

or worries in his head
when he goes to bed
the TV hero sleeps
soundly; I am no hero

(You can find this and more of my cheesy poetry here).

So, is it too much stuff on my mind? Or is it just too stuffy and I have to pee?