Journals & Writing

[duck2ducks]

The stereotype for a blog (and specifically a LiveJournal) is the post that shows up every 8-10 months, lamenting that they haven't written in ages and oh how embarrassing that is. And then nothing else for another 8-10 months.

As I do not enjoy being a stereotype, I made sure to get a couple of actual entries in before committing the sin of

Comments

[nothinfinah]

I started writing a diary when I was 13. I wrote in it every day even if it was just to note the weather. the form changed slightly over the years and as I got older the frequency got kinda choppy (it's hard to write a detailed accurate entry when you've had a few drinks... and just as hard when you're suffering a hangover), and I also had days when I would spend hours scrawling about a week or mores worth of news in to my book.

It was a very 'girly' kind of diary I think with lots of photo's and movie ticket stubs and notes from friends stuffed into it and clippings from magazines etc decorating the inside covers of the many many volumes.

I stopped writing for about a year in 2004 I think (maybe earlier, maybe later) and missed it. It works as a good vent for me to get stuff out before it drives me crazy. Even with LJ I still have a physical book I try to write in, although I normally end up having to go back through months of LJ entries and deciding which entries are worth copying into the book.

But Live Journal and other online blogs are a separate entity to the handwritten journal, i think.

Also I'm glad other people occasionally write on this. I have a friends only account and it feels like most of my friends don't use this any more :P

[duck2ducks]

I known a few people - well, all girls, actually - who have voiced a similar thing re: the difference in writing on a screen and writing on paper.

And I can *kind* of understand it, but only vaguely ... because I type fast enough that writing by pen seems AGONIZING at times. (Also, I do a lot of my composing and initial editing on the fly and use the backspace key a lot. Things you can't do as well on paper without a lot of scritchy-scratchy!)

But yeah, it's interesting to see how LJ seems to have declined a bit in the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Which is unfortunate, I think, because I still believe LJ offers an experience that isn't really duplicated quite anywhere else. But then, maybe people twitting is their reaction to the problem I cite - that of having less time to write down their thoughts - but where they take the tack of writing in 140-character lines, I just stopped writing for a while.... :P

[nothinfinah]

well facebook is more of a 'what am i up to right now' kind of medium. but a journal is much more indepth thoughts on subjects or whatever.
My physical paper journal is mostly the private entries of LJ. sometimes you need to get stuff down to clear out your head, but don't really want to share with the world.
the more public ones are like writing a letter to a friend, only a bunch of them all get it. I often copy an LJ journal entry into an email for friends and family that aren't on LJ and vice versa (stuff about our trip to the UK or a wedding weekend etc).

yes handwriting can be exceptionally straining on the hand but I'm glad I do it on occasion because I love to receive hand written cards and notes and letters and it seems to be a dying trend. It's rare to see nice handwriting these days and writing in my journal helps me practice.
I'm an old fashioned girl at heart. :)