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

[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.