thoughtful
coalescent recently posted about how he felt the use of his LJ was changing, becoming less personal and more "serious" writing about SF writing, and this prompts me to reflect on my LJ for a bit.When I started this, some of my friends (e.g.
dmw, dalmeny, sambushell had been using LJ for a while [1]), and rwrylsin and I were about to go on holiday in Scotland for a month in the near future (we were living in Melbourne at the time). I figured that a) it was about time I got in on this LJ thing, and b) we could use LJ to keep people informed about our holiday (I have to admit, sometimes it can be a little tiring getting back from a holiday and having to repeat the story of the holiday to each different group of people I meet - an unfair attitude on my part, perhaps, because there's no reason for the different groups to know that I've been doing so, and each group deserves as good an account as the others, but that's just the way I am).Since then, I've found that at least a few people in any new group of people I meet have LJs, and LJs seem to spread virally within groups, so my friends and friend-of lists have expanded a lot since then.
I am conscious of the fact that more people might be reading me, and I've discovered that I quite like having posted something worthy of comment (shallow, perhaps, but again, that's just the way I am [2]). It's quite likely that this shapes the content of my postings. On the other hand, there are still a lot of people reading who are Adelaideans (ex- or current), or Melbournians, or my parents (all four of them; ask and I'll explain that :-) ) who probably are interested in reading me babbling on about how exciting and exotic it is to shop at Tesco and Sainsbury's and such-like.
So, this journal will continue to be a mixture - a travelogue as
rwrylsin and I visit every vaguely castle-shaped thing in Scotland (or try, at least), some boring details of how life and work and fencing are going, photo entries from time to time, and even, occasionally, some serious thoughts, news items, or "other stuff". (and meanwhile, I've been reading my friendsfriends page lately, figuring that people whose writing I find interesting probably read writing of other people whose writing is interesting. Will probably add a bunch of people to my friends list this way, too ... )
[1] I just dug up old mail archives to see if I could find out who first invited me to LJ, or how exactly I got started, but I can't see it. (I'm a "save everything" sort when it comes to mail, but on the other hand I've changed computers three times since then and haven't always been completely organised with backups, so who knows where the mail is ... )
[2] I really dislike the word "egoboo" (even when it is, apparently, the right word for the occasion).
