How did I miss this?

* * * * *

How did I miss this?

> It's November and aspiring writers are plugging away at their novels for
> National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, an annual event that encourages
> people to churn out a 50,000-word book on deadline. But a hundred or so
> people are taking a very different approach to the challenge, writing
> computer programs that will write their texts for them. It's called
> NaNoGenMo, for National Novel Generation Month, and the results are a
> strange, often funny look at what automatic text generation can do.
>

Via Hacker News [1], “The strange world of computer-generated novels | The
Verge [2]”

National Novel Generation Month [3]? No one told me about this! I did not
receive the memo [4]! Why was I not informed of this earlier?

I've att empted to do NaNoWriMo multiple times [5] but I could never finish a
novel, no matter how many times I attempted it.

But this? Write a computer program to do the dull boring bit of writing
50,000 words? That sounds more fun.

Okay, “fun” being a relative word here.

I've looked at some of the results and some of them are fantastic! Ten years
ago I threatened to write a novel with 50,000 fictional words [6] but this
year—Liza Daly [7] has done what I threatened and wrote a book with 50,000
fictional words [8]—using potentially fictional alphabet [9] to push it to
11.

Most of the submissions appear to be written using Markov chains [10] (an
algorithm that uses probability of word A to follow word(s) B to generate the
text) and while it can produce some spellbinding wordsmithery—a story with
the fascinating title of “The Case Of The IT. And Now I'll Be Too Late With A
Murder Done On My Own Doorstep. Volume: 8” is a prime example, you have to
read through a lot of dull and nonsensical prose [11] to find the gems.

A better technique might be a more template driven system, such as the one
used to generate _The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed_ [12]:

> At all events my own essays and dissertations about love and its endless
> pain and perpetual pleasure will be known and understood by all of you who
> read this and talk or sing or chant about it to your worried friends or
> nervous enemies. Love is the question and the subject of this essay. We
> will commence with a question: does steak love lettuce? This quesion is
> implacably hard and inevitably difficult to answer. Here is a question:
> does an electron love a proton, or does it love a neutron? Here is a
> question: does a man love a woman or, to be specific and to be precise,
> does Bill love Diane? The interesting and critical response to this
> question is: no! He is obsessed and infatuated with her. He is loony and
> crazy about her. That is not the love of steak and lettuce, of electron and
> proton and neutron. This dissertation will show that the love of a man and
> a woman is not the love of steak and lettuce. Love is interesting to me and
> fascinating to you but it is painful to Bill and Diane. That is love!
>

But that requires quite a bit of work to write the templates that help to
generate the text:

> Key:
> <text variables>
> (redundancies explicitly added by Chamberlain, by repeating a text-
> variable type, apparently for camouflage)
>
> <Intro phrase> my own (essays) about love and its (endless) pain and
> pleasure will be (understood) by all of you who read this and (talk) about
> it to your (<worried> <friends>). Love is the (subject) of this <essay>. We
> will <begin> with a question: does <meat> love <vegetable>? This quesion is
> (<implacably> <hard>) to answer. (Here is a question: does a man love a
> woman or, (to be specific), does <man> love <woman>?) The (interesting)
> response to this question is: no! (He is (infatuated) with her.) That is
> not the love (of <meat> and <vegeable>). This <essay> will show that the
> love of a man and a woman is not the love of <meat> and <vegetable>. Love
> is (interesting) to me and you but it is painful to <man> and <woman>. That
> is love!
>

“Racter FAQ - Google Groups [13]” (Racter being the program that “wrote” _The
Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed_ [14])

But it's still November. I have 2½ days to write a quick program and get my
NaNoGenMo done! Hmm … perhaps I could hook Racter [15] up to ELIZA [16] …

> > eliza: Hello. Please state your problem.
> > racter: Excellent! Excuse me a minute while I attend to some business. I
> will be right back.
> > eliza: Why do you need to tell me excuse while you attend to some
> business?
> > racter: Is it better to need or to despise? Why is it that I do need to
> tell you to excuse myself to attend to some business? Because
> electrons are brave. Braveness is nice, don't you think? And the
> needers all insist upon it. Do you imagine I am a Communist?
>

“colorful personalities [17]”

Hmm … have to think on this …

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8663851
[2] http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7276157/nanogenmo-
[3] https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bchnLOT7ic
[5] https://www.google.com/search?q=nanowrimo+site%3Aboston.conman.org
[6] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2004/11/01.1
[7] https://blog.safaribooksonline.com/author/lizadaly/
[8] https://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2014/11/08/nanogenmo2014-
[9] http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/voynich
[10] http://blog.codinghorror.com/markov-and-you/
[11] http://coleww.github.io/its_existentialist_my_dear_watson/the_case_of_t
[12] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EK8SCS/conmanlaborat-20
[13] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.int-
[14] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EK8SCS/conmanlaborat-20
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racter
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
[17] http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/dialogues.html

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