So what to do?
I know some months ago, I promised never to make a "I'm sorry I haven't been posting" post... blah blah blah... and that's not what this is. Not one little bit.
My paid subscription to Livejournal ends in about a month. I have had a paid Livejournal since about 2004. I know this seems a little odd in the days of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc, but paid services keep my site alive, I don't have to see adds, and I get to use more icons than just a single avatar. These are all things that I like.
The problem is, why am I paying? Do not get me wrong; I still love my Livejournal and the few people who read my here (btw... @anne_elise on Twitter is the best place to follow me these days), but I don't post here often, and truth be told, I have been pretty gun-shy recently, worried that my posts would offend people. Why? Well, I have some strong disagreements with people and I have opinions I want to share, but I am afraid that my opinions will piss them off and they will run away, blah blah blah, repeat of the Katsu/Stormy bullshit from a few years ago, where two people I had been very kind to turned on me because I wrote a polemic about worshiping Freddie Mercury (Freddie be with you!). I feel that if I were to make my arguments on current issues, many people might be very upset with me and these are people I wish to not upset, so I have decided to do what so few people do these days: hold my tongue and let it go.
If that wasn't enough, I have two blogs out there, both inactive, a Facebook, which I hate, a Google+ which almost no one posts on (pretty much just Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day), and a Tumblr.
I have put a lot of hours into making this journal. From the layout, to the icons (all of which are mine, and which you are free to use so long as you credit me), to posting, commenting, etc, and it seems like most everyone, even people who claim to hate Facebook, have just migrated to Facebook. So why am I still on LJ? Why am I still paying for it each and every year? It's around $50 a year to keep LJ looking this fabulous.
Now, I have been taking a semi-retired position from blogging, mostly because I really feel burned out by the way social networking is being used. Not the way that it is being used by my friends and other like-minded people who just want to easily share cool things, but the way it is being used to market to us (ads and promoted things on Twitter and Facebook) and the ways in which people are using it to pretend that their horribly bigoted ideas actually have traction in the world (see the 1 Million Moms Facebook page).
Is my LJ worth $50 a year? Should I just let it laps? In reality, it's only around $4 a month.
Some other ideas I have been kicking around: moving to one of the other Journal sites some of my friends have moved to, focusing on Blogger or Wordpress, and really working on Tumblr.
I'm really looking for thoughts and suggestions. I do want to break out of this "slump" in my writing where I'm writing almost nothing and what I do write feels forced and bad. My writing was at its best when I was doing this every day. So some help and feedback would be greatly appreciated.
My paid subscription to Livejournal ends in about a month. I have had a paid Livejournal since about 2004. I know this seems a little odd in the days of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc, but paid services keep my site alive, I don't have to see adds, and I get to use more icons than just a single avatar. These are all things that I like.
The problem is, why am I paying? Do not get me wrong; I still love my Livejournal and the few people who read my here (btw... @anne_elise on Twitter is the best place to follow me these days), but I don't post here often, and truth be told, I have been pretty gun-shy recently, worried that my posts would offend people. Why? Well, I have some strong disagreements with people and I have opinions I want to share, but I am afraid that my opinions will piss them off and they will run away, blah blah blah, repeat of the Katsu/Stormy bullshit from a few years ago, where two people I had been very kind to turned on me because I wrote a polemic about worshiping Freddie Mercury (Freddie be with you!). I feel that if I were to make my arguments on current issues, many people might be very upset with me and these are people I wish to not upset, so I have decided to do what so few people do these days: hold my tongue and let it go.
If that wasn't enough, I have two blogs out there, both inactive, a Facebook, which I hate, a Google+ which almost no one posts on (pretty much just Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day), and a Tumblr.
I have put a lot of hours into making this journal. From the layout, to the icons (all of which are mine, and which you are free to use so long as you credit me), to posting, commenting, etc, and it seems like most everyone, even people who claim to hate Facebook, have just migrated to Facebook. So why am I still on LJ? Why am I still paying for it each and every year? It's around $50 a year to keep LJ looking this fabulous.
Now, I have been taking a semi-retired position from blogging, mostly because I really feel burned out by the way social networking is being used. Not the way that it is being used by my friends and other like-minded people who just want to easily share cool things, but the way it is being used to market to us (ads and promoted things on Twitter and Facebook) and the ways in which people are using it to pretend that their horribly bigoted ideas actually have traction in the world (see the 1 Million Moms Facebook page).
Is my LJ worth $50 a year? Should I just let it laps? In reality, it's only around $4 a month.
Some other ideas I have been kicking around: moving to one of the other Journal sites some of my friends have moved to, focusing on Blogger or Wordpress, and really working on Tumblr.
I'm really looking for thoughts and suggestions. I do want to break out of this "slump" in my writing where I'm writing almost nothing and what I do write feels forced and bad. My writing was at its best when I was doing this every day. So some help and feedback would be greatly appreciated.