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

[synn.livejournal.com]

I would love to see my own comment stats, but can't get it to show up formatted...
Being #6 is disappointing, but not really unexpected. Which leads into my thoughts on lj, and posting.
Here's some basic facts:
Joined: 2001-06-07 06:59:44 (I was working for the summer at the career development center -- long days w/ little to do, in an area rather far from all of my friends, with few people around in general. If I hadn't joined lj. I might have gone crazy.) Eilonwy was my first friend : )

Journal entries: 736 (divides to 147 or so a year, which surprised me.) I started by posting on a regular basis, b/c as mentioned, I would have gone crazy otherwise. Slowly, I realized I didn't really have anything to say. You know this, but my posting is based on my mood. When I'm happy I tend to post short tidbits about what's going on or things I find funny. When I'm stressed or angry I vent about it. When I'm depressed I tend to not post. usually. What's changed... well, several people friended me after 1:1, which is great, but since I figure they're probably interested in fandom or my fic, and not aimless ramblings about my rather dull life, I've started locking any non-fandom posts. That's about it.
I've tried reviews, and I've tried meta, but I'm really not good at either of those, and I can't ever seem to get through the post b4 deleting it.

Comments:
Posted: 935 - Received: 1,032

I'm terrible at responding to comments, so these numbers surprised me too. I expected a much greater discrepancy. um.
Comments are like akward social situations for me... you know when you hold a door for a stranger and they say 'no, you first' and it goes back and forth and no-one knows how to take it? it's like that. I never know when the comment conversation should end, and always feel as if I'm just rambling on to someone who's sitting at the other side thinking 'omg, do I have to answer this girl?'
And others I just don't have anything to say. For instance, I wanted to participate in every day of your memoryfest, but couldn't think of anything for most of the days, partially b/c I just didn't like most of the stuff I remembered, and partially b/c I have a terrible memory.

I don't know how many stories I've posted... somewhere between two and 6 or so, and three drabbles. Lately I've been trying to comment a bit more, but that's still really difficult. I've also been trying to write more. I'm working on a longer story, but am attempting to do drabbles in between just as little one-scene practice shots that make me feel like at least I've done something.
what else... I don't make promises to myself anymore, b/c I never keep them.
Have I gone on long enough?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

NEVER!

Sounds like you were having a Charlie Brown kind of day when you wrote this. :( <-- sad face to indicate my feelings when you sound like Charlie Brown

I always admired your restraint in posting and your ability to not let LJ suck up your life totally. Fanfic maybe, but LJ not so much.

I never know when the comment conversation should end, and always feel as if I'm just rambling on to someone who's sitting at the other side thinking 'omg, do I have to answer this girl?'

I uh, *laughs* I'm still trying to figure out the etiquette for that sort of thing. Most of the time I end up keeping the other person's last comment in my inbox, meaning to reply with something pithy, and then it gets buried with a new batch of comments and I find it like three months later and feel stupid replying so late and just delete it. Which may or may not come across as rude. When is a polite time to end a conversation? I mean, one of the two parties is going to have a comment hanging there, un-responded-to.

I wanted to participate in every day of your memoryfest, but couldn't think of anything for most of the days, partially b/c I just didn't like most of the stuff I remembered, and partially b/c I have a terrible memory.

I wish you had participated more too. I loved what you did share. You'll have to start storing up memories now for January.

[synn.livejournal.com]

Charlie brown day... that's great. True too.
If I let LJ suck up my days, I wouldn't have any time for fanfic.
I always admired your ability to write good reviews, and posts w/, you know, content. You actually use LJ to connect w/ people, which I don't really do.

I do the same thing w/ a lot of my comments... leave them in the inbox for far too long. like email.
If there is a polite time to end the conversation I can't figure it out... looking at other comment conversations doesn't provide the answer... someone should write a little LJ etiquette thing... 'thou shalt not continue a comment conversation beyond three responses'

Memories... maybe I'll just start writing them now. You know most of my life already... : )