A new year and a look back: 12 months on LiveJournal.

[bironic]

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of my first post. Tonight heralds the start of autumn and the commencement of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. (A very happy New Year to those who are observing.) Altogether a good time for a little recap. There was going to be a bunch of ficlets to celebrate, but they're not done yet, so it'll just be this navel-gazing for now.

This year on LJ, I:

• Learned how to craft posts that weren't bloated with two or three posts' worth of information. (This one is my favorite cringe-worthy example.)
• Discovered the joy of giving and receiving feedback.
• Fell hard into House fandom and became part of an online community for the first time instead of watching from the outskirts or participating mainly in conferences/conventions.
• Posted five pieces of fanfiction in two fandoms, totalling 19,700 words (with another 4,000 of Spike story and 1,400 of ficlets on my computer getting worked on). Have been thrilled to see several of them Memory'd and included on people's fic rec lists.
• Held a month-long Memoryfest (friends-locked).
• Hosted a birthday talk-about-your-usernames festival. (Still open! Drop in if you haven't yet.)
• Befriended people I've never met and didn't have plans to meet.
• From an initial list of six or seven friends, became "friend of" 56 people/communities (!), 54 of which are legitimate and 20 of whom I know in real life. Also known as the discovery of the golden rule, Create and Ye Shall Be Friended.
• Wrote 176 posts, including reviews for 26+ movies, two plays, half a dozen ballets, nine books, and a lot of episodes of House. May I take a moment to apologize again to all the Harry Potter people who've put up with that last?
• Found out exactly how much LiveJournal eats one's life.

Top Commenters on bironic's LiveJournal

1	kabale	140
2	catilinarian	130
3	daasgrrl	66
4	maddy_harrigan	56
5	michelle_nine	42
6	synn	37
7	firestorm717	31
8	musicisbelievng	21
9	captain_tulip	20
10	thewlisian_afer	19

11	usomitai	18
12	secondsilk	17
13	pynelyf	15
14	thirdblindmouse	14
15	crazypalefreak	11
16	mateo10	10
17	bethctg	8
18	elynross	7
19	pun	6
20	gingergirl1977	6
21	lysa1	6
22	simple__man	5
23	fallen_arazil	5
24	alisel_kat	5
25	elanor_isolda	5
26	renoir_girl	4
27	mistressofmagik	4
28	leaper182	4
29	ryokophoenix	4
30	swatkat24	4
31	descrime	4
32	hawkeyecat	4
33	krippity	3
34	nakannalee	3
35	shoedog	3
36	wildelamassu	3
37	a_to_zita	3
38	chiana606	3
39	imsanehonest	3
40	m_butterfly	2
41	stephantom	2
42	rubberbutton	2
43	evila_elf	2
44	bitter_crimson	2
45	annephoenix	2
46	tathren	2
47	chicating	2
48	topaz_eyes	2
49	amazonqueenkate	2
50	qween_tartii	2
51	jakob_sinister	2
52	supersaps	2

Total Commenters: 102 (47 not shown)
Total Comments: 1,477
Report generated 9/22/2006 10:02:44 PM by scrapdog's LJ Comment Stats Wizard 1.7

(I've excised all the one-comment-ers. It's too bad this doesn't take into account comments on my posts in other communities.) Not surprising that six of the top ten are people I know personally, including a sister and some very good friends. kabale still holds the top spot after enthusiastic participation in the Memoryfest. daasgrrl, my goodness, you've shot up quickly. thewlisian_afer, I like how we hold parallel spots in each other's graphs.

Next year on LJ, I hope to:

• Hold another Memoryfest for all and sundry, probably in January.
• Meet some of you lovelies who live within driving distance, and perhaps some who don't.
• Improve my commenting skills so I can say in one paragraph what it now takes four to cover.
• Write more.

And in that vein, it's time to work on those ficlets.

In the meantime, TELL ME on this day of reflection: How has LiveJournal affected your life? (How) have you changed your posting style since starting? Did you make promises to yourself that you've kept or broken? Etc. Fellow LJ addict wants to know.

Comments

[bell]

Hey! There's nothing wrong with putting two, three posts' worth of stuff in one! In fact, I rather like doing that, since I know my flist has a broad range of interests and by writing about multiple subjects, I'm more likely to irritate less people. XD

How has lj affected my life? *rolls eyes* Sucked up all my time, introduced me to new fandoms I definitely didn't need, shaken my faith in humanity, exposed me to sundry idiotic drama and wankery, and made me question what the hell I'm doing. (It's my fourth year on lj and my fifth blogging; you could say I've come disolusioned >D).

On the other hand, I've made dear friends, kept in contact with other friends who span at least three continents, learned about things I never imagined possible, found hours of entertainment, became more informed about different corners of the world, found pieces of (mostly fan)fiction that I fell in love with... in spite of what I said above, I'm not leaving lj anytime soon.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I suppose there's nothing wrong with it, but that one was particularly poorly formatted and still irks me, in an amusing sort of way.

Ah, I like your bipolar summary of your LJ experience. :) Definitely agree with the unfortunate exposure to human stupidity, though that's nothing new. The bright side of LJ is you can tweak your friends-list so you don't have to see the idiots most of the time. Unless they friend you and force you to go look up how to get rid of them.