Branching off the discussion of the Diarist awards, and as potential fodder for the history of OLJs to whose development I would love to contribute, enquiring minds want to know: How did you find your first OLJ? through random browsing, or through someone telling you about a site or an entry you should check out, or how? For escribitionists, another question: how long had you read OLJs before you began to write one or are you one of those intrepid few like Kymm who found the genre *after* she began to do it herself?

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

Answers

In September 1996 my office mate had adopted a new kitten and I thought I'd look around the web for cat names. (See, I'm not *entirely* anti-cat.) I found Bryon Sutherland, who was always being adopted by strays. He only wrote a paragraph or so a day and therefore the page I stumbled upon was a month's or a week's worth of dated entries. My jaw dropped: this is what I'd been waiting for. I found Open Pages, which had begun two months before, which led me to--well, unfortunately I don't remember who was and was not on Open Pages that early, but fewer than 20: Willa, Mary Anne, Ceej, Diane, Tracey, Bryon, Nigel, Jen, Jay, and "Kat." Then Sage. And Gage. And Gus. Whom do i forget? Who else was there then? (I didn't read Cara, who goes that far back, until last month when I found out she loves Mandy.)

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

A coworker told me about a site where a woman had posted a detailed list of the men she had slept with. This concept intrigued me, particularly because I had been keeping my own list (though not on-line) for several years.

I went to the site, began to read and was immediately hooked. At that point it was just The List, but soon afterwards Sara began posting her journal as well. I became a regular reader, and often followed the links she included in some of her entries, which is how I found many of the journals I still read.

Once I realized that there was a burgeoning OLJ community, I began actively searching for new sites to explore. And...um, now...I'm addicted.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I did a search for Martha Stewart (of all things!) and found a link to something Jessa (Shelley) had written. Through her I found Sage, then Willa, then I started my own.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I was doing a search for shareware journal software and found Mary Ann Monhoraj (sp?). From there I found Tracey Lee and Willa and Sage and it was probably 3 months later that I started Estrogen (6/96).

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I blame my whole journal addiction on alt.society.generation-x, without which I would never have heard of so many other modes of procrastination. Sometime in '96'97? John Scalzi set up a big fancy website with his reviews and columns, and then he announced his intention to write a web journal on asgx, to near-universal apathy I think. That was the first time I heard of journaling.

In mid-'98, I was poking around in the big list of asgx member pages that used to exist, and B. Erin had a link to Gus's Big Fun glossary. I followed the trail to the Diaries of Gus and then to Daily Dose of Deb. Hey! Scalzi was onto something.

Incidentally, Beth, Leslie of Smug, etc. and Leslie of the World O'Chicks also did time on asgx and I too kept mistaking one for the other because they're both so hip (hate that word but can't think of a better one). Kim Rollins was also there back in the dark ages IIRC, and I've just discovered two asgxers with web logs (Crazy Uncle Joe and Wendi). Hi all! The year.cabal burbs are still being built. Have a Soho Soda or Upcider while you're waiting.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

Was a reader of Justin - the kid who worked at Wired and had a whacky site. Used his pages to teach myself HTML, followed his on-line life because it was interesting and, wow, new content all the time. (my biggest pet peeve at the time was that people had web pages but never updated them - why should I bother coming back?) I put up my own basic page and toyed with the idea of putting my paper journal up on the web. Justin put up a list of people on his site of who were "putting their lives online" and I came across Willa from there. Then Byron. Then Mary Anne and slowly the network grew.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I was poking around on the 'net sometime in late 1996 and stumbled across http://otherside.org

I think I was looking for stock photography or something.

From there I found Olio, Maggy Donea, Alexis Massie, Glassdog and The Fray.

From Olio I found DinoNeil's Grayscale, Bill Osborg's perceptions and Gabby.

At some point I started clicking on the "Open Pages" logos and found "Often" and "Archipelago"

From there it was a growing avalanche as I found more and more sites ...

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I really can't remember whose journal I found first, but it wasn't very long before I started my own -- so late 1997, I guess.

I had been reading Elly and Puce and Joanna, all of whom kept journals of a sort. I found them through Megan's Bitches of the Stony Heart webring, of which I was a member. Guess I was probably reading Megan, too, but I don't recall. (Hey! Megan! Legacy Award! Next quarter, someone remind me to nominate her.)

Someone there must have had a link to Open Pages, because I found Kat's site and read the whole thing in one sitting. Hers was my favorite diary, and I still haven't found one that grabbed me so quickly or so thoroughly. And it was definitely Kat's site that made me want to start my own journal, although I knew mine would never be anywhere near as good as hers. (Actually, I started my journal because of someone else who had a really crappy one that she kept bragging about, but Kat was the positive side of my inspiration.)

A few weeks ago I went back and reread Kat's diary, now with the knowledge that Kat was actually Ryan. I tried to keep in mind that a man wrote it, that it was essentially fiction. But I couldn't. I really think Ryan ought to be writing fiction, because that diary is STILL dynamite. I understand why folks who thought of Kat as a friend felt betrayed, but since I was just a fan, I have to go with "impressed."

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

Willa was the first one I ever read, and still do [despite all the cat stuff]. After that, I did a Web search and then found diary-l.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

Sage Lunsford and I were on an email list together. She sent mail one day with some sig about having a jillion cats and a webpage, and out of curiosity, I clicked.

Her journal, "Coffee Shakes," had literally started that day. I was a faithful reader - and even got my entire office reading it - until about two months before she apparently closed up shop. She recently floated an idea about selling the "Coffee Shakes" collection as a CD; I promptly wrote her and told her I'd happily buy it.

As for the rest ... I started reading OLJs in February 1998, when I was looking for an excuse to goof off on a book deadline. I found Diane Patterson's somehow - I can't recall with the same clarity as finding Sage's - and clicked through Archipelago out of curiosity. I've been reading intermittently since, usually finding the OLJs via Archipelago, OLJer's recommendations, or the occasional visit to Open Pages 'burbs that strike my fancy.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

Bad Hair Days was the first one I found. I found it as one of the weekly picks at Latitude11. Courtney of L11 was hosting my site at the time. she still rocks :)

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I don't remember much of the technicalities of finding actual journals, but I remember being much into fictional journals when I first heard of the net. I used to watch soaps, but fictional journals were much faster! I was a Spot (defunct) fan, then after its demise took up reading The Tide (defunct now), and used to review web soaps, then found some link to Spotfans Unplugged- which had both fictional and real journal entries. At the time I was looking at this stuff (I think around winter/spring 98) a lot of web soaps were dying out, and I wanted my doses of dish more often than once in a blue moon. So I somehow found web journaling when looking for soaps (Yahoo link), and now do a bit of it myself (though I've been slacking for a month).

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2000

I found my first one nearly a year ago, while checking my counter stats one day. Just looking to see who'd been past my site that day and where they'd been referred from and when I see a referring address that I don't recognise I always go to see what it is, and in this case it turned out to be the May 31 1999 entry by Stasi, where she listed my humble bit of HTML as a site she'd enjoyed that day. I knew, I should add, that such things as online journals existed and that people kept them, but this was the first one I'd bothered to read in any detail, and this was also the first time that I knew such a thing as a journalling community existed. Although it would still be a few months before I looked much more deeply into the community thing

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

The first journal I found was Pamie's. My sister and I had gotten into a disagreement about Oprah's book list, and to strengthen my argument, I searched for 'why I hate Oprah's book list' in Yahoo or something. That led me to other sites around the journalling neighborhood; and then started my own in March.

Guess I'm a late bloomer, but I'm addicted now...

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I was browsing the humor sites in Yahoo and found the Gen X Guide to Disneyland, which led to Kim Rollins' journal. From there I branched out to Kymm, Beth, and others.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

A link from a ChickClick site to pamie. I believe. Maybe Tomato Nation. And I got *there* from mbtv.

I had my own olj for about two days, long before I found others.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

A few years ago, I was researching the European Witch Trials for a project, and I came across The Witching Hours, a site by ShanMonster. She also had a personal page called The ShanMonster Page of Delights and Vertical Imagery, as well as a few others. I found them fascinating, especially a page called Rant and Rage, her journal. She has a unique way of looking at things, and I found myself going back again and again.

That was more than 2 years ago.

Since then, her site has gone through many changes, and I've become a regular on her forum. Recently, she updated Rant and Rage, giving it a new look and adding links to several burbs. I went to 30 Days, where I picked a journal at random, called My Life in 12 Point Font. I loved it, and I go back every day to see if Jan has written anything new. Anyway, I checked out the other journals she reads, and thet's how I came here.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I was teaching a class called "Creating Personal Home Pages" and was looking for good examples. I found the Cool Site of the Year awards for personal pages, which led me to Water and Glassdog and The Fray (so it must have been mid to late 1997...Maggy and Lance won CSOTY in October 1997 and I found them while they were still nominees). Surfing eventually got me to Why Web Journals Suck. Diane was the first person I read regularly and I linked to her as a class example, along with Lucy and I'm-not-sure-who-else.

It was several years before I started my own journal in November 1999.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Back in early 1998, when I got my first taste of T-1 connection, hotwired.com seemed like a pretty cool place to hang out. At that time, they still had member profiles and "geek of the week" and all that neat people-oriented stuff. I somehow happened upon Allura Ellington's profile (I think she might have beeen a geek of the week) and, by extension, her website and online journal. From there I found Maggy's now-defunct Water, which is the journal that inspired me to write my own. I started Unspoken about 10 months after starting to read journals; most of the lag was due to the fact that I hadn't an inkling of how HTML worked. Not that those 10 months really helped- my first design was really quite hideous!

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I can't remember if it was the very first journal I'd read, but I do remember finding Squishy through a link on Hissyfit, and finding Plaintive Wail through a link on there, and finding some reference Stee made to a horrible train wreck of a journal (not naming names) which had me absolutely, morbidly riveted with the crap writing and dismal state of the author's life.

I think that's what hooked me...

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I was trying to find the author of the Greene Knowe books. Someone on a mailing list pointed me to Mary Anne's listing of children's books (the answer is E. M. Boston, by the way), and from there I went to her Clarion journal, and from there to Ceej's, and from there to Diane's journal, and there I stayed for about a year. This past January Diane put up a list of her top ten favorite journals, which was a cruel thing for her to do since I do have work to get done, and it's been all downhill since then.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I'm on the Well and someone there posted a url of something or other on his site, which I went and looked at. When I go to someone's personal site I often go up the tree to see what else they have so I did that with his. He's on spies, so I got to a directory of other people on that machine and one of them was Ceej. When I saw that she had a journal, I started reading. Ever since I was a kid I've been drawn to anything with "journal" or "diary" in the title - might have spicey stuff! I remember my mom explaining that I'd probably be bored by "Guadacanal Diary."

Anyway, I read all of Ceej's back issues and when she had links to other people, I started reading them, and it just went on from there.

I've had a web page since 1997 and have toyed with doing a journal, but am too lazy to do it regularly.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

The first journal I found was The Book of Rob, about 8 months ago. I actually found one of his poll questions first, it was linked from another page (I've completely forgotten what) with other polls. I gradually figured out how the archives worked, and started reading other journals. I started with people on his list of journals, then the lists of the journals they were reading, and so on.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I originally found Diane Patterson's site through a search on screenwriting; then I followed the links there and started reading different journals. Now I'm an addict. That was about one and a half years ago, and I started my own olj on Jan. 1, 2000 (seemed appropriate).

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I found Xeney's Guide to the Galaxy a loonng time ago and checked back in on it about two years ago and discovered it was now a journal. And that was my introduction to the world of online journaling.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Well, I love recaps of my favorite tv shows, which brought me to Fresh Hell's Real World recaps (which then led me to Mightybigtv but that's another story). Soon Fresh Hell became a daily stop, as well as her links and their links and their links and so on and so on.......Shortly thereafter, I became inspired to attempt my own journal.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I had been writing something like an online journal for some time, and had thought about going online, but been afraid to, because I write about work, and whenever work finds out, I get in trouble. I have exposed my hand. Given them a sword.

I subscribed to rara-avis, a discussion group for hard-boiled mysteries, and looked myself up on alt.zines, occasionally, where Jeff Potter, who gave me a home page at his magazine, Out Your Backdoor, defended me to philistines.

But I didn't know anything about online journals.

Recently, I bought a house. I made a bargain with myself. If I was going to chain myself to a $100,000 mortgage, I would compensate by going online with my serialized novel. Make the leap.

Not long after I did, I read an article in Salon about a man who was fired for his Web site, which made fun of his employer.

This article linked to a piece in Salon on the online journal phenomenon, or community, which I had read when it was published, and not paid any attention to.

I went back and reread it. The author linked to a few of the better, long-lasting journals. They linked to journals they read. I discovered a whole new world of people who were doing what I was doing. Indeed, to them I was an upstart.

A Johnny-come-lately.

Whereas, I felt like I had been doing what they were doing since 1975. In print and with pamphlets. Xeroxed manuscripts. Through the mail, and hand-to-hand.

At crafts shows and street fairs, chili cook-offs and gopher races. Goat-ropings.

Do I feel a part of the community?

I feel like an outlander. Excluded. As R. Crumb said, "I got snubbed at the love-in."

Crumb wasn't feeling sorry for himself. He was making fun of himself. A subtle difference.

You can go either way with me, and some people consider me a whiner.

Also grandiose, as when I talk about van Gogh and Mozart as if they were my peers. Thoreau and Whitman. Two journal writers. (Whitman's was dictated to Horace Traubel.)

Maybe this is just Art Brew's persona. The outsider artist. He calls himself a vernacular writer.

An ambassador in bonds, who speaks boldly, as one ought to speak.

Clad only in the breastplate of righteousness.

Who stands, and in the evil day, withstands.

A diatribe writer, like Philip Wylie (Generation of Vipers), or Hunter S. Thompson (Generation of Swine).

Throw in Writing and Other Blood Sports, by Charles Willeford, which includes New Forms of Ugly: The Immobilized Hero in Modern Fiction.

To Art Brew, immobilized in Del Ray.

I'm not immobilized, I'm online.

What does that mean?

A topic I explore.

Daily.

In my journal, in forums, in interviews with myself, in poetry and prose fiction, a screenplay, essays on the novel, as a form, in a glossary.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I am a graphic designer and I was looking for an international icon for something, I can't remember. One of the links in the search engine said "international icon for job distress." Considering the kind of day I was having, I needed to see what it was.

The link went to rebeccablood.net, which is a weblog. I never found the icon, but I've been hooked ever since. I don't visit many on a regular basis, but I do check out xeney.com almost every day. (I'm also a garden freak, so I have to see what Beth is doing in her garden, too.)

I am working on my own page, but being a graphic designer, I think I am being way too anal about how it looks. I just need to get over it and start posting something...I only have a few pages left in my paper journal.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I was already an internet freakazoid for about 5 years, but I hadn't even heard of an OLJ till this year. (I guess I was living under quite a big rock) I think I found Beth's page by going to some search engine and looking for advice on something. I can't remember what the decription said, but the title "Bad Hair Days" struck me as something I should at least take a gander at.

That was 5 months ago and now I'm officially hooked on these things. I'm not sure if it's because of the journal itself, the forums, or the community as a whole, but for some reason I just gotta keep coming back to see what's new.

-Z

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I found Rob Rum-Hud's site on a "web sites I read" page. It belonged to some girl whose page I had found looking up wedding pages. I read Rob for a while then branched out a bit, now I read about 5.

I don't write my own though, but I do journal with pen and ink. I'm worried that I'll write an OLJ and seriously suck at it. Plus there is this whole Online community thing, I'm not sure that's something I want to deal with....

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

One fine day (early 1997, I believe) I was engrossed in Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions: A Journal Of My Son's First Year." Which got me to thinking......Does anyone keep a journal online?

A search engine (probably search.com)led me to "The Mining Company." From there I found a link to Beth (how lucky to find a gem right away!)Actually they post a list of what they consider "the best."

I had no idea! All these amazing women sharing their everydayness with the world.

So Thank You, Beth, Kim Rollins, Viv, and Shelley.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I was addicted to the MORPG Everquest... recently i got rid of my charachter and was trying to fill up some of the dead time in my day.. i visited hollywood bitchslap! to check out the reviews on gladiator before i went to see it. I ended up reading all of the reviews and still had some time to kill, so i headed over to their forum where i saw this post by vanessa. I have been reading OLJs for about a week.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I love books by Helene Hanff and one day in June 1997 I made a search for information about her. I ended up at Willa's books list and got curious with the journal link. I got hooked. One month late (3rd of July) I started my own. I wanted to start earlier but we went on vacation.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I can't for the life of my remember - I can't remember who I found first, where I followed links from, or anything. It's all a blur.

I have been a faithful Squishy reader since she wrote about school shootings, though, but I can't remember when that was.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I can't believe I'm the first one to say this, and it's completely unoriginal, but I found the world of online journaling through the Salon article. Read Kymm and Beth and trolled through Open Pages for others, then started my own journal about four months later.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Faith's journal, which used to be "Sick Sad World" (I think) was Cool Site of the Day on Yahoo (I think!), which my husband was in the habit of checking out every day. He recognized it as something I'd be interested in, directed me to it, and then realized there was a whole webring of journals. He told me, and I was BESIDE MYSELF with excitement. After I devoured Faith's archives, I found Willa, and from there it was just a matter of time before I went on to Jackie (who lived in Alaska at the time) and a whole host of others. It was over a year before I started my own journal, though, because I didn't think I had that much to say.

Turns out, ya can't shut me up.

http://www.bitchypoo.com/bitchypoo.html

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Karawynn's People Chase site (no clue how I found that) led me to Rob, before he was really a journal (1996 or 1997). Which led to Kim Rollins, I think. Then I didn't look for a while, and found Musings of the Gus in a fairly accidental way. Followed some of his links and found that they led back to other people whose sites I had already seen. I did a journal for a little while in fall of '97, but I was maintaining it by hand and that part was so tedious that I quit until quite recently when I found Steve's CGI script.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Willa's Journal was my first, and I've been reading her for about four years. I don't remember exactly how I found her, but I'm sure it had to do with being a new webmaster and spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do things. Or it might have been via a search for books/reading.

I only started my OLJ this year, so I have four years of reading experience behind me.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Actually, I'm one of those freaks who really thought they had an original idea and that I would be starting something that would catch on like wildfire!

When I worked at The Inside Company, I used to check in on this site of this guy I knew from the local bbs scene. He kept a journal, of sorts (it really sort of sucked a lot) and every night I kept reading it and thinking: "I can do this! And I can do it BETTER!" At the time I only had a site that was the basic "this is me, this is my cat, I'm so damn interesting" crap, and I'd been looking for something to actually DO with it, so I started looking for graphics and stuff to put together something.

Well, lo and behold, a week later, I receive mail from stasi telling me to check out her new design on her site (her old design, was also along the lines of this is me and my husband and my pets, kinda deal), so I checked it out, and through her found that 1199 people were ALREADY doing this.

And I thought I was so damn original and creative. Heh.

Coincidentally, stas was also the one that got me online, way back when. I wonder if she regrets introducing me to all these things. (=

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

Hahahhaah... oh no, I just think of what your life had been like if I had not introduced you to the computer.... you'd still be the world's biggest 'NSync fan and you'd probably never would have met your man which means you wouldn't have Jessica... see, it was all my plan.

Wow, I got *two* people into the community! That's pretty cool.

I found journals through the "teen scene" and realized that they were all alike-- juniors and seniors talking about how school sucks and such. I thought it would be interesting to someone if I wrote a journal about my life as an adult person with infertility issues, a social work background, and a good marriage. Then, a few days after starting mine, I found Heather's journal, and realized that there were other grown-ups who were doing this. I read Heather's entire site and e-mailed her about 5 times like any good reader/stalker. Hey, I figured I was one of maybe 2 people who had ever read it, wouldn't she be thrilled to know that someone read her journal! I didn't realize at that time how many readers OLJ's have. After all this time, Heather's journal is still one of my absolute favorites.

I remember the first time I saw Kymm's journal, I went to it because someone had called her a "famous journaller." I went and looked at it and thought, wow, it must be really weird to have 300 people reading about you every day! I thought that she was really famous and that she probably was noticed when she walked down the street. Little did I realize! And I'll bet kymm has four times the readership she had a year ago when I saw her site meter. LOL

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

i found this site from pamie from mbtv from fametracker from yahoo picks of the day (or the week, i cannot remember) last summer, and been lurking periodically (ok, religiously) ever since.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Two days after surgery, heavily doped up on Vicodin and unable to do much but surf the net, I happened on my first on-line journal. I was typing single, random words and seeing what I could find. I was checking out "scary", and I think the site was called Scarygirl. I'm not quite sure (the drugs, you know), but what I am sure of is that she had a link to Bad Hair Days. I read that days entry, and then went to the beginning. And then came the links...

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

By the way, the date was 10-14-99, and I thought it was really strange about the forum question on the day I discovered Bad Hair Days!

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I was infatuated at the time with the webdesign/digital art click, especially the Digital Divas, and though I knew I'd never be able to join their ranks, I was friends with several of them, and visited allot of their pages very frequently. I ran across Ginkgo, and immediately fell in love with DAJC. At the time, she had just removed herself from all 'burbs and webrings in order to kind of start over again. So I had no idea there were other OLJs out there for a long time. Eventually I found Kymm and Willa, fell in love with Ceit when she started her first Book of the Amber Dragon. I read for what must have been almost a year before starting my own journal. I didn't do much plugging or pimping for a long time, though, preffering to stay off the webrings and out of the spotlight while I got my feet under me.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

(I know this is kind of an old thread but I wanted to respond anyway) I first started reading OLJ in about November. I was sitting at my computer online when someone randomly IMed me and practically demanded that I visit their site. So I did. I signed the guestbook and from that the owner made a notify list of updates. I got interested and started reading all the entries and his links. After him I started reading the "popular" kids journals, Laurie and Chris and Tim and Zed. Tim linked Beth and Pamie and that was my intro to adult journals. I enjoy Beth and Pamie's the best because of their use of forum and feedback.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

I was reading Yahoo's Daily news one morning and there was a comment about the upcoming John Travolta movie "Battlefield Earth". The line went something like "rat-bastard shouting John Travolta doll" or some such...and being me, I had to figure out what movie Travolta shouted "rat-bastard" in. I started a search and came up with Ratbastard.org. Funny, acerbic and kind of obnoxious. That was the first journal I ever found.

Beth I found by accident, too. I think my search parameter had something to do with hair...and voila! A bona fide junky emerges.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000