La Tour D'Open Pages

A couple of people have asked me, now that I've put up my response to Todd Napolitano's essay of shame, when I'm going to put up my essay on Why Web Journals Suck. My usual response is: As soon as I get Donut back from the computer doctor. Which reminds me:

Most obnoxious toy ever: Pet Doctor Barbie.
Because Barbie can't spell veterinarian.
We all know no one told her there'd be math.

I realized that since I've spent so much time over the past two days coming up with the aforementioned reply, I should re-evaluate what I want to say in my essay. I mean, I'd hate to put some work into an essay and then have another journaler disembowel me the same way I did Todd. I decided to go through the grandest collection of modern journalers ever, the Open Pages ring, of which I am proud card-carrying Member #2, and remind myself of what I like, what I don't like, and why. I figured it was also time to shake up my journal-reading habits; I haven't added a new daily journal for a while and there have to be some worthwhile ones out there.

And there are. I'm very annoyed at myself for not keeping pace with the Open Pages members more, as well as excited that there are a whole new bunch of writers to read on a daily (or almost dailya lot of folks out there haven't made new entries since the middle of December!) basis. Intelligent, funny, and thought-provoking.

A sneak peek inside the ups and downs of today's travels: put navigation buttons on your journal pages so readers can move between entries! I gave up on several journals because I had to keep going back to the top page before going on to the next entry, repeat, rinse, lather. I must have marked "no nav." next to at least five and maybe ten journal names.

Recently I've been writing a lot more in my offline journal because it hasn't been as easy to get time on the computer (Darin was working at home). I noticed that the two journals differ more than simply in media.

Offline Journal	Online Journal
Introspectivedescribes my internal state.	Outward-lookingdescribes my day-to-day activities.
More honest about my feelings, but I'm not always specific enough about people, places, and things.	More balanced. I don't feel like ranting in public, and I don't want my friends to know what a monster I am in private.
More spontaneousI pick up the pen (usually a fountain pen) and start scribbling.	Better writtenI work harder to describe the situation for my readers than I do when I'm the only audience member.

Boy, when I first mentioned this topic to Ceej, I felt like I came up with a lot more differences between the two. I guess I will have to spend some more time thinking about this. What a horrid thought: what do you mean I can't just dash off any old thing?