Muddled thinking about movie blogging

[randy_byers]

Yesterday I went back through my 2010 posts on film -- and I didn't make it all the way, because I wrote a lot about film in 2010. I liked a fair number of my more ambitious posts, and it got me thinking -- again -- about trying to make my film writing more accessible. I block search engines on my LiveJournal just to make it slightly harder for the uninitiated to find the personal writing here. Mostly I'm not eager for my family to find this. I prefer to interact with them on Facebook.

So how do I make my film writing discoverable by search engines but not my other LJ writing? I could start a separate LJ dedicated to film writing (and maybe other non-personal writing too). I could Friends-lock all my personal writing on this journal and unblock the journal as a whole from search engines. One problem I have with the latter solution is the amount of work it would take to go through my whole journal Friends-locking personal posts. The problem I have with the former solution is the amount of work it would take to transfer my past film writing to a new location. On the other hand, I could just start a film journal from scratch and forget all my fucking-brilliant past work. But then I also worry that if I started writing about film for an anonymous (i.e., open) audience, I would start over-thinking it. As I am probably over-thinking this whole issue right here, right now.

And so once more inertia wraps me in its ample arms.

I suppose another option would be to Friends-lock all my past posts in this journal (there's a way to do it globally, isn't there?), unblock the search engines, and then write unlocked posts going forward that I don't mind being searchable. I could unlock past posts on film as I had the time and interest in doing so. Hm.

Comments

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

1. I love your film writing.

2. Somebody (maybe Hal?) posted recently that they backed up their LJ to a Wordpress blog. Maybe it's not just a mass export tool. Maybe you can pick and choose.

3. I have a separate dye blog from my LJ blog. The writing is different to an extent... and I don't update it as often... but because it's easily accessible via google I've had some very interesting people contact me to talk about dye work. So I do recommend that path.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, Hal did write about that transfer process recently. Moving to a stand-alone blog opens a whole new can of worms for me, since I would have to think about acquiring a domain. I'm also not clear on how to handle photos/screencaps on a blog. LiveJournal's built-in process is nice.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

I'm going to send you a cap of the Wordpress new post page, fyi, so you can see it. There do seem to be some pretty simple tools to embed images in your posts.

Domains are pretty cheap...

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Why couldn't you blog on wordpress.com itself?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I probably could, but if I were to go the Wordpress route I would be tempted to get my own domain. No, I don't know why. Thus I'd have to think about it.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Or just use Blogger - even easier than WP I think and has some nice new templates that make it look almost as pretty.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, give me more choices to think about!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I second that the importation from LJ to Wordpress is very easy and quite configurable.

But I have some of the same inertial problems as you in re photography blog, so I'm probably no help.

Blogging directly on wordpress works pretty easily, too. Uploading pictures into their media libraries takes a couple extra steps compared to LJs, but puts it neatly into the blog itself.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

So does "configurable" mean that you *can* select which LJ entries you want to import to Wordpress?

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I spoke too soon. No, it doesn't look like you can select posts to import.

Friends-locked posts you can password protect on WP.

Hal has indeed recently done an LJ to WP export. Blogger to WP was the one I did last summer.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

You could publish a fanzine. Everything on efanzines.com gets indexed.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I already publish a fanzine, and I actually prefer HTML to PDF as an internet-publishing format.

[wrdnrd]

I already publish a fanzine

But do you publish enough fanzines?? You could squeeze another one or 2 in there, surely!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

You must be mistaking me for Chris Garcia.

[wrdnrd]

The hair is rather similar.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I thought about separating my writing out into two LJs, but then I wondered how many people would follow the other one. Global f'locking is possible, but then you have to leave it that way, and unlock each post you want to have open individually.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I doubt many people would read a film blog by me, but I think there would be stuff in it interesting to a rare few, which might be enough. I know I appreciate it when I stumble upon amateur reviews of oddball old Hollywood films.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds like your last self-suggestion might work best, but then I haven't read any of the comments yet. [RD in anon mode]

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking of the last system reading this; but you have thought of it. If you do end up setting up a separate blog for film stuff stick links on here or I'll keep forgetting to look at it. Which would be wrong.
Oh, and while you're at it, you can set up your beer blog.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'm worried that my LJ and Facebook will become just a series of links to my blog. But I'm also thinking I could stick other reviews, including beer "reviews", on the blog. It's just that most of my reviews would be of film. We'll see how it pans out.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Hm, a combined beer and film review blog sounds just the sort of thing I want to read. Of course the big problem now is what you're going to call it...

(www.heinekenfuckthatshit.com)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I think I'll stick with Dry Ice Factory for the name of the blog. I've been using it for various things since I first heard the song it comes from, which was many moons ago. As for the domain name, that's still sekrit.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I just want to add that I really like your film blogging, and a paper collection of it would be no bad thing.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Dr Moonray! I'm going to try to get a blog set up, and then we'll see where it goes from there.