Genre Gender.

This fascinating website uses an interesting mathematical algorithm to predict the likely gender of the writer.

Now, I’m not sure how I feel about my writing being “gendered” (presumably if an algorithm can predict such a thing with a fair degree of consistency, our own subconscious reading of the text might infer a gender as well, though perhaps with less accuracy). I think ideally, I’d like to be almost perfectly balanced between “masculine” and “feminine,” especially since I have always striven to balance both energies in my own personality.

The article accompanying the website breaks down the development of the algorithm and explains a bit how it works:

When the Israeli stylometricans, as they call themselves, study a text, they scrub it clean of everything that’s ”topic specific” — in other words, no ”gown,” no ”princess,” no ”keg,” no ”bullet-resistant.” This is how sophisticated language analysts work these days. They ignore the obvious stuff and concentrate instead on the seemingly unobtrusive little tics that the writer and reader barely notice.

What happens when you strip writing of “topic specific” words? You’re left with the basic grammatical structure of a text, how sentences are shaped and slung together with conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and such. Before even reading the article, I’d begun to notice the algorithmic pattern that it describes:

Similarly, what the gender-identifying algorithm picks up on is that women are apparently far more likely than men to use personal pronouns — ”I,” ”you” and ‘’she” especially. Men, on the other hand, prefer so-called determiners — ”a,” ”the,” ”that,” ”these” — along with numbers and quantifiers like ”more” and ‘’some.” What this suggests, according to Moshe Koppel, an author of the Israeli project, is that women are more comfortable talking or thinking about people and relationships, while men prefer to contemplate things.

I’m not sure if I buy all that. Anyone who knows me knows I am absolutely obsessed with “contemplating things” (why the hell do I write poetry if not because it affords me the opportunity to focus an intense gaze on objects and events that might otherwise be overlooked?)… and yet it is the interconnection, the relationships, between things (and, by extension, between people) that makes things in themselves fascinating. Few people can write engagingly about pudding or void or anything homogeneous—complexity, i.e. a thing’s relationship to itself, as well as contrast make all “things” and people interesting and worth discussing. If anything, this algorithm might help lay bare the sexual stereotypes so embedded in our culture and upbringing, but as usual, I doubt very much if it reveals any biological necessity for such stark differences.

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Of course, I always have to be the stubborn one to shrug off the rules. I couldn’t help but play around with this “Gender Genie” for a little while, plugging in various examples of my work, seeing what results it returned. Eventually, I began to notice a very interesting pattern

As might be expected (by anyone except the writers of the aforementioned article, apparently), examples of my more formal essays and book reviews tended to be overwhelmingly “masculine” in their use of language, while less formal blog entries returned more balanced results, often just on the cusp, though still tending towards the work of a “male” writer. These results make sense to me, though—not only has my nonfiction writing always been very analytical and structured (something which the algorithm only picks up on ostensibly in terms of conjunctions), but whenever I am writing “about something” like a theory or a text, isn’t it inevitable that my language is bound to be more abstracted from “people and relationships”?

Next, I plugged in some examples of my poetry, and the results at first surprised me. For some reason, I expected my poems to be more “feminine,” because poetry has always provided me with a space inside which I could allow myself vulnerability and uncertainty, in which I could freely explore “people and relationships” in creative, intuitive ways. But instead, my poetry too came back as heavily masculine (especially, it seemed, when I was writing from a female’s perspective, either my own or a fictional character’s; however, in poems written from the perspective of “the Orphan,” a male character within a particular collection, the writing leaned more towards the feminine… in some ways, this pleased me, as I had been going for an intentional “role reversal” of stereotypical masculinity in this particular group of poems—it would appear I succeeded). On further consideration, I can understand why poetry may be more “masculine.” I have always been taught that poetry should be made up of intense, concise language, and eschew “weak” or wishy-washy words (especially unnecessary conjunctions and vague pronouns, which also happen to make up a large percentage of “feminine key words” the algorithm screens for). Because my poetry has always sought metaphors for “people and relationships” in the world of “things,” it may appear to a “topic blind” analysis to be masculine in nature.

Last but not least, I plugged in excerpts from my fiction and short stories. Lo and behold–finally, I am writing like a girl! (Should I be rejoicing?) My fiction scores for femininity were almost disconcertingly imbalanced (though perhaps this is partly due to the fact that my major work of fiction right now has almost an entirely female cast of characters, quite intentionally). But then, what is fiction, but the perfect genre for straight-forward explorations of “people and relationships”? Breaking down my long story into segments, often times when my main character, Kim, appeared alone, working at her art or contemplating recent events, the language veered towards the “masculine” again, while scenes involving multiple characters interacting with one another invariably registered as “feminine,” even when all the characters involved were male.

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So what does this mean? Seems to me that genre, much more than someone’s sex, is likely to influence the apparent “gender” of a text. (My god, that’s almost poetic!) Of course, the “Gender Genie” asks you to select what genre your work appears in (supposedly so that it can make the appropriate adjustments), but experimenting with the same text plugged in under varying options often returned very similar results. So perhaps the algorithm isn’t perfect just yet. Or perhaps it applies best to the kind of mass-produced magazine articles and serialized novels being written today, while more serious or creative or “transgenre” works slip through mathematical blind-spots.

What may be more interesting is to compare the algorithmic results with our ability to predict through “guess” or intuition the sex of the writer, and to explore how readers experience these differences, especially as they manifest as a “preference” for one kind of gendered writing or another. Do readers, male and female, appreciate “masculine” nonfiction but expect more “feminine” language in their fiction? Do males generally prefer masculine language and females feminine language regardless of the genre? Is there an appeal, to each sex, for writing with traits from the opposite gender? Many, many questions…. But o no, I’m afraid I’ve started “contemplating things” again! No wonder I can’t land a man.

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Postscript: In case you were curious, this blog post is rather “masculine,” with a score of 1903 (male) to 1571 (female).

Chatter & Noise

This month is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which sounds pretty nice until you realize that what they really mean is “writing a novel in thirty days” and not “spending thirty days celebrating and exploring the craft of novel-writing.” Every year I tell myself I’m going to participate, plop myself down and churn out the 50,000 words required to “win.” I admire the idea of NaNoWriMo, anyway, the bold move to free up the creative mind, escape from the inner critic and give yourself permission to just go wild, write whatever, just write, write, write! Yes. Many people need to indulge in this process but don’t know how, they need the encouragement and social support to nudge them out the door into the untamed land of Imagination.

But then—a lot of it is just… crap. They know that over at NaNoWriMo, too, and they condone it, they smile and say soothingly: of course it’ll be crap, you’re trying to write a novel in a month—the point isn’t to write a masterpiece, it’s to get yourself writing, to prove to yourself that you can do it. Of course, anyone who has ever completed a first draft of anything, much to their horror, knows that the first thing you need to do before anything else is just write crap. You can worry about what becomes of it later.

Still, during the month of November, I inevitably find myself unable to write much of anything at all. Instead, what I get is a lot of noise and mental chatter. (Why they chose the month of November in the first place is a mystery to me—a month where, if you’re like me, you inevitably begin it just a bit hung over from Halloween booze and sweets, then there’s Thanksgiving slammed right in there and the beginning of the Holiday Season… not to mention it’s that dark no-time time between Samhain and the winter solstice when anyone in their right mind is hibernating and gestating, listening and waiting…) Perhaps this is just me trying to push blame off on other people, but each year, as the popularity of NaNoWriMo grows and more and more people participate, it’s like all that crappy writing gets vomited up into the astral ether and I spend the month wading through grossness and confusion.

That’s what it is, really, in many ways: vomit. Plenty of people use the phrase “verbal diarrhea,” but I don’t think that’s accurate. Vomit—the half-digested things, the stomach juices and the gagging and the difficulty—but then also, the relief of it afterwards, how you feel a little less nauseated, a little more grounded, pleasantly empty. Writing can do that for you, empty you out, clear out your system. But with everybody going around vomiting, I find myself in this weird state: I have a lot of things to write about, but nothing to say.

I don’t know about your writing process, but mine usually begins with a scavenger hunt brainstorming, watching and listening. Somewhere along the way, a few seeds are sewn, but I hardly ever know which ones will take root, which ones will die off. Eventually, all this… stuff that I’ve been gathering crystallizes, and suddenly I can’t resist the urge to sit down and write. There is a form there, with its own purposes and momentum, and I sit down and let it carry me along, allowing the central notion to drive my work and shape it, guiding me on what to include and what to pass over.

Right now, I’ve been working on a comparative book review that’s due in a few days. I’ve read both books, taken copious notes, made outlines, reread both books… And while I have a lot to write about them, separately and as a pair—I have no crystallizing, central, driving idea, nothing to say about them. Just disorganized noise and chatter, with nothing to give it shape or direction, no helpful sense of meaning to set me going. My creative work is in a similar lull, random images and ideas surfacing, drifting about, then submerging again into the dark waters of the subconscious. No pattern or message emerging.

Well. A perfect kind of mood for journaling, maybe even for blogging. But write a novel? Certainly not. I have no problem waiting this no-time out, letting things settle, letting them digest so that my internal processes can extract what is valuable and nutritious, and let pass what is so much filler and cardboard.

And I’ll just have to hope that my editors won’t mind a horribly messy rough draft of this review and can give me some time to revise it in December when everyone has quieted back down.

Walking the Garden.

An excerpt from my personal journal:

Speaking of which, I am going to Phipps either way (if I don’t hear back from P., probably tomorrow then). We’ve had snow here for the past twenty-four hours almost non-stop, so I think it’d be great to go to the conservatory via the long walk through the woods. A nice, cold walk through snow, only to end up wandering through the orchid room or the Victorian room, which are bound to be warm and lush and beautiful. I have a book review to finish by Thursday, so I thought I would go to Phipps, bring along some of my notes, find a nice place to sit quietly and try to collect my thoughts and plan my response. Back when I was working regularly on my story (more than a month ago, horribly enough!), I got into this great pattern of morning walks in the park followed by a quick lunch and then writing all afternoon. I always ended up being really energized and pleasantly prolific on those days, so I think I’ll try that again. Then I think I’ll ask my editor for a break from the book reviewing for the next issue, since I miss having time to work on my own creative writing and reading whatever I damn well please without worrying too much about taking notes and keeping track and meeting deadlines. Not that I don’t like reviewing books, but I usually want to write so much, and because of time I usually and up only writing a fraction (and a mediocre fraction, at that) of what I really wanted to say… Maybe instead, I’ll try my hand at some creative nonfiction or even “Druish” fiction, see how that goes. At least it might be fun.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how to motivate R. and J. to get a move on with newsletter stuff so that we can get a third issue out in a reasonable amount of time for it to be a “winter issue” and not an “oops, almost spring actually, because of those nasty disruptive holidays” issue. Though maybe aiming for three issues a year, instead of four, might be more realistic at this point? At least till we start getting outside submissions on a regular basis (if ever? no, definitely someday—patience, Ali!). Still, we have a good theme for the third issue (“freedom”) and at least two pieces in a rough-draft ready-for-revision stage. Just waiting on R.’s essay on “freedom, thought and language” (thank you Chomsky and Huxley), throw in a few random poems and there you go, issue number three. Not hard! Still, finding time to workshop is the thing, especially with R. always visiting home or girl and Thanksgiving nearly here….

See, who needs boys when you have writing?

Grand Canyon

Words have power, and these are the ones I keep singing to myself the past few days.

i love my country
by which i mean
i am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government to make right
where so many cunning sons and daughters
our foremothers and forefathers
came singing through slaughter
came through hell and high water
so that we could stand here
and behold breathlessly the sight
how a raging river of tears
cut a grand canyon of light

yes, i’ve been so many places
flown through vast empty spaces
with stewardesses whose hands
look much older than their faces
i’ve tossed so many napkins
into that big hole in the sky
been at the bottom of the atlantic
seething in a two-ply
looking up through all that water
and the fishes swimming by
and i don’t always feel lucky
but i’m smart enough to try
cuz humility has buoyancy
and above us only sky
so i lean in
breathe deeper that brutal burning smell
that surrounds the smoldering wreckage
that i’ve come to love so well
yes, color me stunned and dazzled
by all the red white and blue flashing lights
in the american intersection
where black crashed head on with white
comes a melody
comes a rhythm
a particular resonance
that is us and only us
comes a screaming ambulance
a hand that you can trust
laid steady on your chest
working for the better good
(which is good at its best)
and too, bearing witness
like a woman bears a child:
with all her might

born of the greatest pain
into a grand canyon of light

i mean, no song has gone unsung here
and this joint is strung crazy tight
and people been raising up their voices
since it just ain’t bin right
with all the righteous rage
and all the bitter spite
that will accompany us out
of this long night
that will grab us by the hand
when we are ready to take flight
seat back and tray table
in the upright and locked position
shocked to tears by each new vision
of all that my ancestors have done

like, say, the women who gave their lives
so that i could have one

yes
i love my country
by which i mean
i am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government to make right
where so many cunning sons and daughters
our foremothers and forefathers
came singing through slaughter
came through hell and high water
so that we could stand here
and behold breathlessly the sight
how a raging river of tears
is cutting a grand canyon of light

- Ani DiFranco

Election.

I’m going to be honest—I haven’t gotten anything done, writing-wise, in about two weeks. It does not feel pleasant (it feels distinctly unpleasant and lazy, actually). But political tensions have been driving me up the walls, so that I simply cannot see the point in working on a nice, intimate story about two people in a small town… not when huge issues and world-wide change (or lack thereof, as is more likely) is at stake.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe, very strongly, that the real meaning of life and its beauty and significance is found not in national “historic” events, but in the vastly complex and subtle everyday lives of ordinary human beings. And that’s what I want to write about. It’s why I have always written poetry, which is just too short and too concentrated to contain grand sweeping rhetoric without gradually spiraling down from poetry into mere obvious propaganda. It’s why I’m trying to write this story now, with only a handful of characters participating in small events that are still, for them, literally matters of life, death and love.

But sometimes it’s hard to concentrate when there’s so much noise all around you. (Or maybe it’s that I’m sleep-deprived and finding it difficult to eat, and therefore focus my mind with any precision today.) So the only thing I can do right now is try to navigate the wild currents so that, when it’s over, my little vessel will still be intact, my belief in the Meaningful Particular still breathing and not left floating like the corpse of a drowned rat down the mainstream.

See, this is what I mean. I can’t think today. Only in images. Right now, there is the image of a frightened, scraggly rat being pelted by rain, its fur ruffled and turned up by wind so that underneath its pale skin full of scabs and scars is exposed… And the rat trying to swim with its useless little arms that end in claws, to breathe with a nose soggy and lapped with water and snot, to just stay alive so that it won’t become bloated and buoyant like so many dead leaves on the surface of the river. What is that image? To swim, rather than to float. To put in so much effort just to feel oneself moving and alive. To be something small and perhaps disgusting or even feared: the person who doesn’t believe in the inherent benevolence of the system. Who has no delusions of Faith and can hardly weigh which is worse: to see a presidential race so close for McCain who has been running largely on fear, prejudice, xenophobia and misinformation; or to see Obama win and watch people whose hopes had been so high slowly forget them over the next four years as the change they voted for simply fails, with each passing day, to happen at all. Which is worse? Cynicism and bigotry in the present, or the slow death of hope and the devastating return to complacency and lassitude that’s bound to happen otherwise…

Urgh! How can I write anything at a time like this? There is nothing to say. Even my own personal melodramas of loneliness and heart-ache seem silly and impotent compared to this Big Thing. I remember when I had so much hope—hope for the future of the country, hope for myself and my relationships… But that all seems vague naivety now. I do so much better—I see and think more clearly, I live more fully—when I am resigned to the inevitability of death. There is something peaceful in it. I am too old for new beginnings. All I want is a continuation, to see life around me thriving and messy and sometimes beautiful—to stop trying to control, to cease telling myself the story of control.

There was a time when I knew how to get a cute boy to like me, there was a time when I was sure that every good citizen would do the right thing and I could trust not only others, but myself. No, now I trust in continuation, and the Big Thing is only that life itself will continue in spite of my clumsiness and bumping blindly into everything. My fears have become modest and thin, really too small to be used against me. I’m afraid no one will ever love me, that I will never have a family, that my writing will never touch anyone or make the world a little better. What president can promise me these things? What do I care about my own material poverty? What do I care if America “falls to terrorists” or “goes socialist”? I want love and creative freedom, such small things, little rodents and pests that survive the dinosaurs’ extinction and persist even in the worst circumstances. These other things are just lies and Big Fears they’re trying to sell us so we’re ready, so we clamor and absolutely beg to be told the Story of Control, like a bedtime story, to put us to sleep.

I want to stay awake. I want to swim. I want my ratty little life to continue, I want the story of inevitable death and joy to continue. I want people, all the voters and citizens, to come back to me and sit with me and be quiet for a while, and see that there is nothing so big to fear, nothing we haven’t already faced a thousand times.

Perchance to Dream…

Last night, I dreamt the ending to my book. O, it was all there, all the characters with their intricate personalities and struggles, all coming together and culminating in something that was beautiful and ultimate and intimate and true.

Then I woke up.

I forget what the ending was. But damn it, it was good! And now, at least, I know it’s there, it’s in there somewhere, lurking in my brain like a deep sea fish–the kind with the little light hanging off their forehead that lures smaller, dumber fish close.

Now I just have to write it out. My subconscious has assured me that it’ll all work out just fine.

The Use of Journaling.

“Think how many times Kreisler has practiced trills. If you will write as many words as Kreisler has practied trills I prophesy that you will win the Nobel Prize in ten years.”

- Brenda Ueland

Well, then that’s what I intend to do. ;)