Ten years: that went fast

Ten years ago I thought Sage’s online journal (note: Quirky Nomads is just the latest incarnation; there have been many) was the coolest thing ever, and since I was going off to grad school, I’d keep one to keep my friends up to date on everything I was doing. So I started one, modeled after hers. I went to grad school at USC, studying screenwriting. Then I graduated, wrote about some of the things I was doing after graduation. I took a break from writing online at the end of 2000 to 2002. And now I’m back. The voice has changed, the experience has changed, but it’s still fun.

A lot has happened in the past ten years, of course, most of which has probably been mentioned on this page.

We used to use Mozilla. Then Netscape. When Internet Explorer started up I said, “But Netscape has the market sewn up.” This is why I’m not in business forecasting. Now my husband is the manager of Safari. The Web: I’ll never escape.

We used to handcode our entries! For those of you who have no idea what that means, we did all the HTML ourselves. No Blogger! No Movable Type! Hell, even BBEdit didn’t do a lot back then. No, seriously, we did it all by hand. There was no other way to do it.

RSS? You jest. CSS was maybe just getting started (but not even then, I think).

Many of the online diarists knew one another! Or at least had exchanged emails. I remember when Open Pages — remember the Open Pages webring? Hahaha — passed one hundred members and I thought that was a lot.

I used to keep a list of diaries that had been going at least a year, because then people who were looking for a lot of content to read would have something to find. I can’t even imagine attempting anything like that now.

Internet newsgroups used to be available only via newsreaders, and you had to get a feed from your provider. Now I think Google is the only place to get newsgroups. And because Google provides no way to ignore certain topics and posters, newsgroups are now completely useless. But that’s okay: everything else is available on the Web.

Despite the length of time since I first wrote it, Why Web Journals Suck is still relevant. I can barely believe it myself.

Over and over again there’s been the pattern of there being a group of very popular writers/bloggers. There are far more not-as-popular writers/bloggers out there who continually ask what they have to do to be one of the Kool Kids. I don’t know to become one of the high-trafficked sites — in fact, given the precipitous fall of my traffic, I’m sure I should just shut up — but here are some tips that I’ve seen work for people. (Note: all of these are not required, but you’ll need at least some.)

• Talk about sex.
• Post naked pictures.
• Have lots of fresh content. Post at least once a day, although it’s better to post even more frequently than that. That way, readers have to keep tuning in to see if you’ve got anything new.
• Have a topic you’re known for. Specialization of blogs has happened way more in the past five years, but having a theme, an area, is a good way to be known. Political blogs, art blogs, bicycle blogs… there is something out there for everyone.
• Write a sex blog and you’ll have more traffic than you know what to do with.
• Be an engaging writer. Sorry, can’t help you out with that one if you’re not already. But practice does, in fact, make perfect, so get writing.
• You can be a terrible writer if you have a sex blog. Just make sure you spell all the body parts right, so readers know what’s going in where.
• Have a point of view in your writing. Let people know where you stand on issues — not just political issues (although, as you get older, you realize everything is political, so the sooner you get involved, the better), but on movies, on music, on scenery you pass by every day.
• When your readers respond, engage them. (Yes, I know I fall down on this quite often.) The blogging format, with attached comments, makes this much easier. (We used to just get mail, you see.)
• Did I mention sex?

I haven’t tried video blogging and podcasting, but all the same rules apply there. Except those forms are even harder because you’ve got to have skills in more areas than just writing — video and audio need to be entertaining in and of themselves.

(Writing those tips reminds me of one of the funniest interchanges (from my point of view) I’ve ever had. In Why Web Journals Suck I wrote that you shouldn’t have a depressive journal — that is, every single damn entry shouldn’t be filled with doom and gloom because, frankly, no one cares and what you have to do is do something about the situation, not just wallow in it by writing about it. I got a letter from someone wanting to know why I was talking about her, because she was very popular, yadda yadda. You know the punchline, of course: I’d never heard of her. I had run across a couple of other depressive journals and that’s what had inspired me to write that, not this chick. Ah well.)

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Ten years ago I couldn’t imagine having kids.

Ten years ago I drove an Acura Integra. Shortly thereafter I got a Mercedes M-class SUV. A week before Simon was born we got rid of the Mercedes (oh happy day! calloo callay! what a PITA that thing was) and got a Honda Odyssey. I’d like to go down to nothing, but the Odyssey is way better than what I had.

Ten years ago I had dreams of having a gigantic house on a gigantic piece of land somewhere, because that’s what you do when you move up the food chain. These days, I can’t imagine anything I’d like less. There are definitely times I’m annoyed with the size of the house we currently have, although the location makes up for everything: we have neighbors! I can walk places!

Ten years ago I was pretty sure how my life was going to turn out. These days, I haven’t a clue: I can try to guide it, but for the most part I just try to enjoy.

What’s weirdest in looking back at some of my entries is reading something and thinking, “Did I write that?” I have no memory of doing some of these things, let alone writing about it. The writing seems very different from the way I write now, although I guess that is to be expected.

I have met some truly fabulous people in the past ten years as a result of writing my journal. I believe I have inspired a few journals/blogs as well, although I never kept track of which ones.

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Thank you for the wonderful words, Pooks!