Getting started...
I've been tossing around the idea of starting a web journal for ages, but had held off partly due to uncertainty about the various methods available (straight HTML on my own site, a CGI script, or a remotely hosted service like this one) and about how anonymous or non-anonymous to be (my own web site has my real name all over it and is frequented by my friends, family and clients, so I'd always be second-guessing myself as to what I could safely write without pissing people off), and partly just due to inertia.
So how did I end up finally doing it? Pure whim, really. I happened to look at the profile of someone whose postings in another web forum I liked, and noticed she has a LiveJournal web address listed, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. I found that I really liked the format of LiveJournal, as well as the idea that I could either keep it totally separate from my own site or integrate it if I happened to feel braver at a later date than I do right now.
I should warn you, I have no idea how good or bad I'll be at keeping this up. Self-discipline isn't my strong suit, and while I've made numerous attempts at keeping a traditional paper journal before, I've never kept it up very regularly for very long. So we'll see. Don't expect any miracles...
I feel like I ought to introduce myself, but I know if I start trying to do that I'll go on forever, and never get to the current happenings in my life, which are what a journal is supposed to focus on. So I'm just going to dive in the middle of the story, as it were, and let the background details sort themselves out as needed. At least, when I get around to writing my first "real" post, which is not this one.
One other thing: I read an article a little while ago called "Why Web Journals Suck", and I feel I should offer fair warning that at least parts of this journal will probably fall into one of the categories of bad journals that the author mentions: the depressives. Yes, I can virtually guarantee you that at least some of the time I will be venting about my ongoing problems with clinical depression in this space. But not all the time -- I do have a life, and I am happy sometimes. Just not in mid-February, as a general rule.
Edit (Dec 16, 2004): Nearly four years after starting this journal, I'm now going back and making many of the early entries friends-only, since most of them were highly personal, and while at the time I started it I knew no one else on LJ and thus it made no sense to keep anything to my non-existent LJ-friends, now this journal is seen by a lot more people, and I'm not necessarily comfortable with having all them read about the relationship meltdown and consequent intense depression that prompted me to start this journal in the first place. Sorry about that.
So how did I end up finally doing it? Pure whim, really. I happened to look at the profile of someone whose postings in another web forum I liked, and noticed she has a LiveJournal web address listed, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. I found that I really liked the format of LiveJournal, as well as the idea that I could either keep it totally separate from my own site or integrate it if I happened to feel braver at a later date than I do right now.
I should warn you, I have no idea how good or bad I'll be at keeping this up. Self-discipline isn't my strong suit, and while I've made numerous attempts at keeping a traditional paper journal before, I've never kept it up very regularly for very long. So we'll see. Don't expect any miracles...
I feel like I ought to introduce myself, but I know if I start trying to do that I'll go on forever, and never get to the current happenings in my life, which are what a journal is supposed to focus on. So I'm just going to dive in the middle of the story, as it were, and let the background details sort themselves out as needed. At least, when I get around to writing my first "real" post, which is not this one.
One other thing: I read an article a little while ago called "Why Web Journals Suck", and I feel I should offer fair warning that at least parts of this journal will probably fall into one of the categories of bad journals that the author mentions: the depressives. Yes, I can virtually guarantee you that at least some of the time I will be venting about my ongoing problems with clinical depression in this space. But not all the time -- I do have a life, and I am happy sometimes. Just not in mid-February, as a general rule.
Edit (Dec 16, 2004): Nearly four years after starting this journal, I'm now going back and making many of the early entries friends-only, since most of them were highly personal, and while at the time I started it I knew no one else on LJ and thus it made no sense to keep anything to my non-existent LJ-friends, now this journal is seen by a lot more people, and I'm not necessarily comfortable with having all them read about the relationship meltdown and consequent intense depression that prompted me to start this journal in the first place. Sorry about that.