Blogging, Nathan-Style

[vovat]

I've been wondering how other people go about writing their blog/livejournal entires. Personally, I usually write about one entry per day. I don't flog myself if I miss a day, and some days (today, for instance) will yield two or more entries, but, on average, I tend to write one entry per day. I generally try to make it at least two paragraphs long, as well. The one-sentence entry can be nice for getting something off your chest, but I generally wait until I have more to say before actually posting. I kind of think Blogger is more conducive to short posts than LiveJournal, if only because I see a LiveJournal entry as more of a separate entity. I guess I figure that something with a title should have some content. Then again, some people don't title their LJ entries, so I don't know. I'll sometimes read journals where people write a lot of brief entries, and, while I think that's an interesting style, it doesn't really work so well for me.

As for subject matter, I haven't done an actual survey or anything, but most of my posts are probably of the "what I did today" variety. Since I usually don't do much of interest in a given day, these entries probably come off as kind of boring, and probably repetitive as well. I try to add tangents to make things more interesting, but I don't know if I always succeed.

More satisfying to write, and hopefully more interesting to read, are the opinion/philosophy posts, where I post my thoughts either on general matters (religion, the concept of evil, musicians talking during concerts, etc.) or, more rarely, current events. I'm sure I'm not alone in having gotten a little more political as of late, what with the upcoming election and the totalitarian moron in one of the country's highest offices. Sort of along the same lines as these posts are the ones where I talk about my personal history, and how my opinion on something has changed over time, or how I started liking something. I liked writing the entry on how I got into They Might Be Giants (I'm too lazy to look up the link right now, but I'll provide it if anyone's interested), but I didn't get any comments on it, which was kind of disappointing.

I've also been known to write posts reviewing things. The former are easier for me to do when I have a clear frame of reference. I can usually review a TMBG album, Simpsons episode, or Oz book pretty easily, since I've experienced plenty of other things of the same sort. You might have noticed that my reviews for stand-alone types of things tend to be a lot shorter.

I'm not sure I really write in much of a traditional diary style. While I do mention my feelings on various things, they're rarely the main thrust of a post. I kind of get the idea that posting primarily about feelings is more of a female thing, sort of like gushing over celebrities (not that I'm trying to perpetuate gender stereotypes here {g}). I also write with an audience in mind. Not a specific audience, but I write entries with the expectation (and hope) that people will read them. While I do the occasional "This is just something I'm interested in, and you can read it if you really want to" entry, more of mine are probably along the lines of "This is something I wrote for the public, or at least a very small subset thereof."

Now that I have all that meta-garbage out of the way, I have a few other things to say:

1. There's a new Eagle-DNA, for the first time in over a year. Yes, Bob Scott is still around! Speaking of which, I still want to get that book that he did with Mike Leffel. I think it's supposed to be released soon.

2. It kind of bugs me when patrons at the library pay me fines after I've already counted down and locked up the money for the day. I really can't blame them for it, since it's not like we have a "No money transactions after fifteen minutes before closing!" rule, but it's kind of a hassle, you know?

3. I signed up for direct deposit, so I'm not sure why I keep getting physical paychecks. You'd think they would have processed my form by now. Oh, well.

4. I still can't figure out the instructions for finger picking on the guitar.

And, finally, there's this:

In 1977 (the year you were born)

Jimmy Carter becomes president of the US Most of the 10,000 Vietnam War draft evaders are pardoned by President Carter Singer Anita Bryant starts her "Save Our Children" crusade against gay rights Elvis Presley dies in his Graceland bathroom Congress creates a Department of Energy Anwar Sadat flies to Jerusalem in a dramatic gesture of willingness to discuss peace Orlando Bloom, Shakira, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Liv Tyler, and Ludacris are born New York Yankees win the World Series Oakland Raiders win Superbowl XI Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup Swedish music group ABBA passes The Beatles as having most records sold Star Wars is the top grossing film The Shining by Stephen King is published "You Light Up My Life" by Debby Boone spends the most time at the top of the US charts Three's Company premieres

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

More cool things for your blog at
Blogthings

I knew about Elvis dying (if he really DID die, that is {g}) in the year I was born. I'm surprised that Ludacris is my age. I would have figured he and Liv Tyler were both older than me, and Shakira younger.


EDIT: I just noticed that I forgot to give this post a title, even though I mention in it that I always title my LJ posts. How ironic.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up on the new Eagle-DNA! I tend to check it sometimes, but I haven't for a little while! So it is good to know! (Also, you might dig Bobzilla, too.) But, yes! Hooray for Mssrs Scott and Leffel! (I actually bought an ad in the Big Roaster comic book they did a while ago!) And that's cool about the book, too -- even though I'm all over the Keenspot boards where Leffel/Scott typically hang out, I didn't know that their book was comin' out soon. So that is awesome and wicked and wicked awesome.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I only check Eagle-DNA occasionally, since it really isn't updated that often.

As for the book, Amazon says it'll be out on October 1, but I don't know how accurate that is.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah... sometimes I'll check every day, just because I've got it on my "Things To Check" local page, but usually I skip it.

That's true, but I'm not sure, just because Keenspot's got a history of pushing back book release dates. But I don't think they could really push that one back, just because, well, I don't think it'll be useful for too long, being about Bush and all.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Unless Bush gets re-elected, but I'd prefer not to think about that possibility.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

as far as blogging goes.. i don't even think about it that much. it's almost as if i have this little reflex or something that makes me post things without even thinking about it. {g} random things i'd say if i had anyone to say them to, nothing really interesting i guess. but it's addicting.

cool about the book, didn't know about it. i miss those guys.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll sometimes just write random things that come to me, but since it takes just as much time to open Blogger and/or LJ to post something short as something long, I tend to wait until I have something more substantial (read: "lengthy" {g}) to say. I guess I could just keep them open all the time, but I usually have enough Internet Explorer windows open as it is.

As for the addiction thing, there are times I have something I just really want to blog about, and I can't wait to get to a computer and write them down. (I often forget them by that point, though. {g}) I also sort of feel obligated to write something at least once every day I'm on the computer for a significant amount of time, though. I'm not totally sure why, since I doubt anyone would care if I didn't write anything. I guess it's a combination of an attempt to stay in practice, a desire for attention, and the fact that I get annoyed when other people never bother updating their journals and/or websites and don't want to be a hypocrite in that respect.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

well, i have a "blog this!" pop-up window link on my ie toolbar, so that kind of aids in my immediate and unnecessary little quick posts. ^_^

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard of that, but I never bothered to install it or find out exactly how it works.