Returning to Writing After a Long Hiatus

Or: How 4,496 LiveJournal entries prepared me for Ghost.

Custom Userpics and Internet Friends

Remember LiveJournal? It was sort of wedged between MySpace and Facebook on the social media timeline and tapped into the popularity of shared blogs in the 2010s. You probably learned how to use basic HTML or CSS if you wanted to customize your landing page. And, like me, you may have bought a permanent account in 2007 for the ability to upload hundreds of user icons to set just the right “vibe” for each post.

I met some of my closest, long-term, long-distance friends in places like ✏️petbulls and ✏️denglish. Liz and I have been swapping photos of our dogs for almost twenty years. Janne still somehow finds the perfect reels to send me on Instagram. Seventeen years after we walked U-Bahn lines and explored graffiti in Berlin, I can hardly believe Romany now has three daughters who look exactly like her.

LiveJournal was a huge hub for fanfic, pop culture, sharing the minutiae of your routine, and, of course, drama. But for me, it was a way to meticulously record the story of my life–something I’d been doing in paper journals since the age of ten. I was a prolific writer, sometimes posting two or even three entries a day. Ultimately, I wrote almost 4,500 LiveJournal entries over the span of fourteen years. And then life got busy–and really good!–and my journaling came to a natural end.

Over-Commitment as a Community Superpower

Over the last decade or so, I’ve devoted much of my time and energy to building and supporting my local community:

• Running: Joined a local club, hosted beginner and intermediate runs, and organized a charity 5K.
• LGBTQ+ Community: Grew a tiny sapphic WhatsApp group into a thriving 300+ member Meetup and Discord community.
• Events: Planned countless socials, crafting events, and Pride celebrations.
• Local Government: Invited our mayor and councilmembers to attend events, speak to small groups and engage with our neighbors in intimate settings.

I love people. I value connections. And I am passionate about creating spaces where authenticity thrives.

From LiveJournal to Ghost

I’d love to return to writing as a means of exploring how my authentic self is intertwined with (and emboldens!) my professional self and career–and to empower others to do the same. If there’s one thing I would like to do consistently on this platform, it’s to be fully me. (And I promise all this content is and will always be uniquely mine and not AI-generated even though I adore em-dashes and can’t bring myself to stop using them.)

Have you struggled with how to balance your authentic self with your professional identity? What tools and practices have helped you? How do you “brand” yourself without losing yourself?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!