Thursday, December 29, 2005

Slogging Through the Archives

A month ago, I wondered where all the bloggers went when they left the service that dare not speak its name. The new blogs lay untouched for long periods of time. It made me think that perhaps having to pick up and move elsewhere had soured the writers on the whole idea of blogging. Now I realize where they went, for I am mired in that same sucking mudhole.

I’m up to my neck in the old entries. Funny how swimming around in all the forgotten words and ideas has robbed me of all inspiration to write anything new (temporarily, I hope...) . It’s been such a monumental task to pull all those words out of cyberspace, and cache them in a form that is under my control. I’m only saving them as Word documents at the moment. At some future time, I’ll print them out and buckle them into my big binder. Why does that seem safer to me than storing them on my hard drive or a CD? Right now, I am under the gun just to inject them into my computer…I have four days to get this done. Somehow, I think it’s not gonna happen…

Interesting, though, this trip down Virtual Memory Lane. How surprising was the unexpected development of a "journal community!" It sprang up like lightning, sparked across the virtual horizon like a giant meteor, and then, as quickly, began to diminish and decay. There was a steady exodus going on even before the final blow-out. Perhaps anything that catches fire so quickly and blazes so brightly is doomed to a brief life…it just burned itself out.

And each of us expatriates has stood at the fork in the road and pondered which path to take. New community? Virtual diary? The seed of something different, something more? I thought I had made my decision… But my visit to the past has pointed out one troubling fact about the j-land community as it was in its heyday. I enjoyed it. And I miss it. What to do?

5 comments:

Cynthia said...

It is a royal pain saving all those old entries. I can't just cut and paste into Word either. I have to read them all, and the comments. I do miss the community, but it had gone "off" before it finally crashed. I'm still keeping up with my core group of journals though it's not the same. Whatever you do, just keep on writing.

Gigi said...

I've only managed to archive about 2 or 3 months worth. I do not, however, get lost in reading old entries, which I find embarrassing in the extreme (who knew I was such a dork?) I do get lost trying to transfer some pictures to word, which seem to have disappeared from the UK site and are C& P-proof.. It is just all so tedious.

I think I'm going for a virtual diary/creative writing outlet. But who knows? I'm letting it find it's own path. It always does.

Christina K Brown said...

I copied my whole journal like a maniac...on one weekend. Without reading the entries at all!! They are all saved as drafts in blogspot and slowly I am soing back over them and posting them. I was so afraid of losing them and I had not ever backed them up...

I still have every journal and diray I have ever written so it would kill me to loose this one too...

Anonymous said...

You know, I just ache over how this whole ad thing tore apart our little loving community! And, if I could...I'd continue at the new place, but I just don't have the energy to put into figuring that process out. Perhaps if I can retire this year I will work on it. Otherwise, I am staying put and will continue to write as I am able. Hugs and please keep writing because the world shouldn't miss what you have to say. Love, Lisa/CW2smom

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