I'd already been struggling quite a bit with my blog. One post would be about work, the next about my kids. A post or two about some personal angst, then something random from the news or high-tech industry. Blogs need themes, don't they? Some kind of focus so folks know what to expect.
On the other hand, and there's always another hand to be had on this topic, the title of this blog is Serendipity, which by it's very definition implies a lack of focus. Even though I'm moving blog homes and could change my title I'm keeping it, 'cause I'm clearly lacking some focus here. Plus I find the word serendipity to be optimistic, and I like that.
The beauty of Vox was that I could lose focus in full view of a small audience that was totally controlled by me. If I lost confidence in a person and decided I couldn't share with them, I just lopped them off the neighborhood tree and moved on. My friendly, closely-controlled audience would grow and shrink like the tide, but there was a constancy in the supportive souls who seemed interested in my words. Lord help them.
That tree house is scheduled for demolition, the wood sold to developers, or left for scrap. I've moved into a glass apartment, AKA TypePad, where everyone and anyone can see everything. The worst part I think, is that I don't know who the visitors are and I have no way to find out. The gamut ranges from no one to friends to complete strangers. How do they find me? What do they think of me? Do I care? No. Yes. Maybe. Ask me tomorrow.
The loss of privacy controls is the hardest part to swallow. The jagged pill stuck in my throat that I can't quite get down. The spotlight, even when only illuminated to a small faceless crowd, feels hot and intimidating.
And yet, I don't appear to be done writing. My battle with writer's block, now compounded by the necessity of managing my google results, is being actively fought. What to write about? The answers seem to have changed now that I'm here and not in my tree house.
It's funny, as much as people think I'm extroverted and public and out there, the truth is that my public persona has always been tightly managed. I reveal my layers based on the audience. It's always honest, always me, but the amount of me is dependent upon to whom I'm talking. I don't lie, I just don't always reveal everything.
So of course I moved into a glass apartment.
When I first started blogging it was experimental at best. Truth be told, I started because I was working for a blogging company and felt it would be hypocritical to sell blogging to others without doing some myself. Over time I started to find my voice, the one that tells stories, the one that can package up a slice of my life and present it in a few hundred words. Sadly it always seems to take a few hundred words.* Now that I have found my voice, I can't get myself to shut up.
How to manage my need for privacy and my need to share? This is the part I don't know yet. Most glass apartments have at least one or two solid walls for privacy. In TypePad there is only "draft" mode. It's either me or everyone and it turns out I'm not much of a diarist. I want to share my stories with other people, even the nameless, faceless ones.
So pardon me while I adjust the lights, move the furniture around and fine tune my voice (again) for this new space. I promise to stop whining about my need for privacy and the death of Vox soon enough. In fact this post might even be the last one on the subject. Regardless of how I might feel about it, I was the one who decided to keep blogging.
So let's get on with it.
*Twitter has helped a little, those 140 characters can only create shavings of life, not slices.
There are some folks from vox trying out livecloud.com, they seem to like it because it has many privacy settings similar to Vox.
There are also many people choosing to go to wordpress. It does not have the ability to create a friend list and thus 'friend only' posts, but it does have the ability to have a private blog that you can give certain people the password to see (the free version only allows 35 'allowed' readers, for unlimited there is a fee). Or you can just make certain posts private, for those you would also have to give a password to the people you want to allow to read the post.
Posted by: Country Cinderella | 09/14/2010 at 01:21 AM
I've decamped to WordPress too. I don't mind that all my posts are public. I very rarely had 'hood only posts anyway. I grabbed your RSS feed, so shall keep up with you that way.
You have to keep blogging - how else will I know what swan tastes like?
Posted by: bookmole | 09/14/2010 at 05:30 AM
I'm surprised that TypePad doesn't have a feature allowing your posts to be marked public or private. I've never tried Live Cloud, but you might have a look at it. I'm on WordPress myself. My blog is public, but I have separate - private - blogs that are just for me. Maybe something like that would work?
Posted by: Margy Rydzynski | 09/14/2010 at 08:49 AM
I had so many "hidden" posts on Vox - private posts for my own therapeutic benefit and as a sort of time capsule - that on Typepad I've had to shut the whole thing down with a password. It doesn't seem very neighborly of me to read everyone else's blog without allowing them to read mine, but I haven't figured out another solution ... yet.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 09/14/2010 at 12:49 PM
The thing I miss most about Vox is the ability to post to "friends" and/or "neigborhood" only. This allowed me to express myself in what felt like relative safety because my posts weren't visible to the whole world. At least 50% of my posts were protected in this way - visible only to friends and neighbors.
But I don't want to hide every post from everyone; I'm not using this blog as a personal diary. Honestly I don't like the idea of passwords, it makes everything complicated. That was the beauty of Vox, it did a complicated thing in a pretty simple way. And that simple thing gave me relative privacy. That's what I will miss.
Posted by: kc | 09/14/2010 at 01:31 PM
Sadly, this seems to becoming the norm on a number of blog sites. I too miss having the ability to control the privacy level of entries. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the transition won't be too painful and that like you, I can become comfortable with the notion of living inside glass walls without breaking too many windows. :)
Posted by: Crimsonmuse | 09/15/2010 at 02:44 AM
You speak my mind Karen.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 09/15/2010 at 08:00 AM
Livejournal as all the privacy controls of Vox, more even. And it has the ability to have Groups whose posts actually show up on your "friends/neighobrhood" page. I'm just saying.
Posted by: Patty Mitchell | 09/15/2010 at 04:29 PM
Karen: you have summed up beautifully so many of my frustrated sentiments regarding TypePad.
Country C: I haven't checked out the LiveCloud community yet. What's it like?
Patty: I was a LiveJournal émigré. I will concur what you've said, but... the community is NOT to my taste. I did not delete my LJ blog but I did go back, and I was quickly reminded why I had left.
One of the biggest reminders: fangirl squick. If you have no idea, well, a webcomic I was starting to like decided to address the topic of homoerotic fantasy involving superheroes. (Is your OMG TMFI light turning on yet?) Yes, fangirls can do just as many squicky things as the fanboys.
Skoolie/"The Libster" has called LiveJournal the toilet of the Internet, and in a number of ways... I so agree. Granted, it's not dangling out there as bad as Facebook, but it's there... and has its own stomach-churning spin.
Posted by: jaklumen | 09/15/2010 at 05:39 PM
Patty: I have a LiveJournal account but honestly, as Jaklumen points out, this is not my community. I feel like I'm a thousand years old there. I'm not ready to be a thousand years old yet.
I still like hip hop music.
Posted by: kc | 09/15/2010 at 07:21 PM
I created a 2nd blog here so if I feel like being private I will, and then won't have qualms about making that one password-protected. For me, it's no different doing that than letting just the Vox neighborhood know my real name.
But I have different concerns, it seems, than everyone else. For me, using Vox was like "going down the pub." I have been missing that tremendously since many of my friends started abandoning it a year ago. However, what I say in the pub or online is carefully controlled, even when it seems like it isn't. My image is constructed a certain way for public consumption. In my most private moments, I'm not logging on to share, at all. I still write on paper if I have that need!
Posted by: liliales | 09/15/2010 at 08:59 PM
I don't think blogs need themes - unless you want to make a living from it. Blogs are your personal page - do whatever the day requires I say! Enjoy!
Posted by: Flamingo dancer | 09/17/2010 at 04:24 PM
Hi Karen,
I don't want to weird you out so I'm telling you who I am in case you remember me from Vox.
I'm Cyn. I "left" Vox long ago and I really do miss a number of people. Yes, we were a true community and I too, wish some of the privacy features were here but then I may not have stumbled across you just now!
You are such a lovely lady--your words often going straight to the heart as I imagine that is where they originate. Despite my lack of a truly personal blog I just "followed" you here on TypePad.
It's quite possible if I run into a few more ex-Voxers that I'll open up more. I so admire your fearlessness in doing so.
Welcome to TypePad. It's been my online home since 2003.
Cheers!
C.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 10/09/2010 at 08:36 PM