Journaling Privately and Publicly

[annofowlshire]

In my early 20s, I got introduced to online journaling (aka LJ), and later on blogs. I used them extensively and nattered on about just about everything in my life. In my late 20s, I got introduced to 750Words, in which I nattered on privately and even more intimately.

Then, in my mid-30s, I went through some serious life upheavals and changes, and I found that even journaling "privately" on someone else's server felt uncomfortable and potentially invasive. I've moved through various versions of offline-but-still electronic journaling, and then moving into old fashioned pen and paper. I've even become proficient in a form of shorthand/code to further increase my privacy (but sadly means whoever inherits them will probably not be very interested in them :P)

Anyway! The thing is, when I reverted to private journaling, I left my online journals in neglect, and even now, I'm finding myself having trouble knowing what to write on them, because either I feel like I'm not being personal enough, or I'm revealing too much. Even behind locked posts.

So now that I've blabbed on about myself, I turn to ask you--what do you put on your online/public journals? How does it differ from what goes into your private journals? I find high value in journaling privately, but I miss being part of an online journaling community. Please give me advice on how to be an online journaler again!

Comments

[lucymorningstar]

I think it's about figuring out how much you're comfortable with sharing about other people, what you want them knowing about you. whether you want your online journal to be a diary or a memory keeper or just about one topic or a general thing. I always find it's easier to be more open here because it's not as easily connected to ME as my planner is.

My planner, for me, is more pre-planning. It's my checklists and my routine and what needs to be done. It's keeping track and accoutability. But my DW is the things I want to remember combined with things to spark conversation and connection with people.

[annofowlshire]

things to spark conversation and connection with people

Thank you, this is brilliantly on the head. I want to have conversations with people.

[lunabee34]

My online journal has always been fandom oriented: fic, recs, reviews of media. As fandom has become a less intense part of my life, I've posted more about my personal life: my kids, travels, things happening in my life.

I try not to use my online journal to whine and vent too much; I don't want to be that person everyone scrolls past because she's constantly negative and always posting about the tragedy of her life.

I do not post about work or people I work with except in the most general sense; I know someone who was fired from our institution for ill-advised post on social media, so I am extremely scrupulous about that. I do sometimes post about those issues under heavy flock and frequently delete the posts after awhile.

My advice for being an online journaler would be maybe to start with the idea of reviewing stuff, maybe a book or a movie. Or a notebook you bought or your favorite pens to journal with. A lot of people post about food, recipes and cool restaurants they've visited. Or you could post about a project you're starting.

[annofowlshire]

Thanks for the overview and advice! I like the idea of posting about things that interest/engaged me. It seems so obvious when you say it XD

[lunabee34]

:)

I hope you get a bunch of ideas from this post.

[swingandswirl]

This is a really interesting question!

I'm coming back to DW after years on tumblr, which doesn't require you to actually produce content, and an upbringing that wasn't exactly encouraging re: telling other people my problems, so it's been a process.

I've found that having access-lock and filters help, as does drafting in a separate document and then editing.

[annofowlshire]

Thanks for your comment!

[jenett]

I have my DW (and formerly LJ), a public professional blog (linked to my legal name, which I pretty much only use for work these days), a public religious blog (and related website), and private notes.

Most of my posts on DW are access-locked, but I basically add anyone to my access list who seems remotely reasonable.

(I also have a few specific filters I use for either stuff that's me working through stuff that involves talking about other people in more detail, or is otherwise more limited audience. I do Pagan religious community stuff, so some of that is 'I want to sort out how I feel about this situation, but with a known audience' and usually there's enough identifying details that people who already knew the situation could figure out what I'm talking about.)

In general, though, I use DW for day to day stuff. Not task lists or pure mundane stuff, but "here's what I'm thinking about" or "here's what I did" or noting stuff I want to track over time (thoughts on doctor visits or work projects or stuff that comes up.) Also a fair bit of me discoursing on random things that people seem to find entertaining.

I use the public blogs for more focused content that I want to have explicitly in public and in that somewhat more curated context. (And I don't post to either of them very often: this year I set a goal of 12 posts on each, and yeah, might manage that.)

One of the things DW does very well for me is "I want to talk this out and explain it to someone who is not me, and writing for an audience helps, but I am not terribly picky about who that exact audience is" - if I want someone's specific feedback, I'll email them (or send them a link to the post or get them in chat), but most of the time I am very happy with "does this make sense outside my head" and the sheer act of putting it into words helps a lot with that.

[annofowlshire]

"I want to talk this out and explain it to someone who is not me, and writing for an audience helps, but I am not terribly picky about who that exact audience is"

This is a great idea ^_^ Thank you.

[finch]

This is pretty much why I use DW too. Sometimes I want to say a thing to people and get feedback but I don't want to make it safe enough for the entire internet on my public blog.

Honestly a fair number of my posts start in my journal and end up wandering onto DW if I want opinions.

[used_songs]

Me, too. I was just reading through all the responses here and thinking, "Hm, why do I post what I post online?" It's the chance to see what others think.

[independence1776]

My paper journal is for thinking things through, writing things out in order to get them out of my head, and memories.

My LJ/DW is for fandom purposes, talking about some things going on in my life (I'm currently very heavy on posts about converting to Judaism, for example), and things of similar nature. I'm aware that what I'm writing isn't private but 99% of my posts are locked so it isn't public, either. I view LJ/DW as an extended conversation with a group of friends, some of whom I know better than others.

My Tumblr is public by site design and pretty much nothing personal goes on there.

Largely, my advice is to search for active communities about things you're interested in, make posts and comment in others' posts, and if people sound interesting, add them to your subscriptions. As you get to know people, adding them to your access list would be an easy way to control who does or doesn't have access to things you may not want to share to a wider audience.

[annofowlshire]

Thank you for the good advice re: paper and DW, and for the points on the communities. (I've been tickled by how responsive people have been to this post!)

[arliss]

When I journaled on LJ and now on DW, I tend to burble about small things. New leaves, and how it makes me feel seeing new growth everywhere, opening to the sun and new possibilities. The fact that I live where snow geese visit every year--there's a produce stand near their feeding site called "Snow Goose Produce"!--and how happy I am to see cars pulled over to the side of the road and people on their lunch break taking pictures of the geese, or of the tree full of bald eagles on the bend of the river. The fact I'm not alone in noticing and appreciating these things makes me happy and grateful. Or, at the movies the other day a little girl was playing with her reflection in a store window, making faces, turning to view her coat and boots from different angles. It made me smile to watch her.

Small things, moments. But it's important to me to write them down, to explore what I thought, how I felt about these things. And yes, it's therapy for avoiding political and social unpleasantness, as well as health issues and money difficulties. But paying enough attention to be able to write out these good moments, beautiful moments, happy moments, helps weigh in the balance against all the negative energy in life right now.

I don't care who reads these entries. I tend to save personal things having to do with other people to my paper journal. Though I have been known to enjoy some pretty energetic rants in my online journal about stupidity, entertaining others in the process and regaining a sense of perspective thereby.

[annofowlshire]

I've thought about posting things like this--I'm glad to find someone else is and finds it satisfying. Thank you for commenting :)

[airlass]

I am in the same situation more or less, so thank you for posting this! Unfortunately, I don't have any advice to add since I'm coming from much the same place, but it's gratifying to know other people have the same problems coming back to online writing, and seeing all the comments was really helpful. I want to get back to online journalling because I too miss the sense of community in a safe space. I hope you find it again as well!