July 14, 2010

I Am Dan Brown?

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The internet toy du jour is a site that supposedly analyzes your writing and tells you which famous writer you most resemble. I’m dubious. I stuck in several blog posts, followed by a few magazine articles of several thousand words each, and it turns out that I write like Dan Brown, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Lovecraft again, Brown again, Brown yet again, and King again.

So I write like everyone. On balance, though, I write like Dan Brown. Which is great news since he’s — what? The best selling author since Yahweh? For some reason, though, my writing income still seems to trail his by a wee amount. What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE: I analyzed some fiction written 30 years ago and got Vonnegut, James Joyce (!), King, Douglas Adams, King, and King. So maybe I’m really more like Stephen King, which would be great too, though his writing riches still elude me.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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