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Following are comments from fellow journalers regarding The Paperwork. I've removed their comments about design, because I want to focus on their comments about content. Besides which, the comments on design aren't really meant for me, because (attribution alert!) this journal's look was designed by none other than CJ Silverio.
I got a lot of flattering--dare I say, ego-stroking--feedback. I also got a lot of comments about what people didn't like, what they felt was missing. I've thought about what they've said and what, if anything, I would do about it.
Renee (Just Me) said:
Content: As Diane is aiming to be on the best-seller list and/or a
screenwriter, the writing *better* be good. And it is. Dry at times, but
technically well-written. Normally, this is not a journal that I would be
interested in. It is basically a newsletter to family and friends, with some
opinions thrown in here and there. The few threads that keep me returning:
the citrus tree's, the comments on any and all journals/journals in
general/journaling community, and her sense of humor. I usually skip the
entries that are about television shows as I don't watch it. My favorite
part of her journal isn't the journal, it is the CrazyMakers page. I wish
that was updated more often, of course it couldn't be endless but I know
that there *has* to be more out there that drives her nuts and this page
tells me so much more about her then her actual journal does. The entries
don't leave me hungry for more, they leave me with an air of being
unsatisfied. This even after reading 3 or 4 entries in a row. I think this
is the journal that shows us the least of the actual persona behind it.
Seeing how well-written her journal is makes me curious to read some of her
fiction. I will continue to read this journal. I like the person that I
know through the journal.
Tammy (Words & Thoughts) said:
The paperwork is one of my favorites. Mainly because it is well written
and a site well developed.
I find the layout flawless, easy to navigate and consistent within the
journal. Diane seems to give us just a brief overview of her days,
thoughts and perception. It's the slightly dry humor that keeps me coming
back, even though sometimes I'd like to read more deeply delivered stuff.
But, then that doesn't seem to be Diane's style or what she desires to
portray. The writing is never stilting and keeps me interested ever
curious.
Bryon Buck (The Meyhem Project) said:
I've been a reader of The Paperwork for about one year now. I'm also on
her notify list.
Without a doubt, Diane's number one attribute is her ability to write
and to entertain. I enjoy her dry, yet witty humor. She's easy to
read. I don't have to re-read anything, for she says it right the first
time. A trait I admire.
She's a bit detached from her own life at times. Perhaps that comes
from her screenwriting education? It's not hard to see that she is
crabby or bitchy or happy or delighted . . . we just don't feel the
emotion. She is a talented writer, and she can show us what she is
feeling, but we just don't *FEEL* it *WITH* her. Just once, I'd like
her to cut herself wide open and "bleed" on the keyboard. I would like
to *FEEL* it *WITH* her. I can't ever remember when she has spoken
about her feelings for her husband. Perhaps that is a start?
I love the on-liner at the top of every page. It is her unmistakable
signature.
Navigation makes sense, it's easy to follow. Her layout is
non-offensive to my modem, and the design itself is also one of her
unique journaler signatures.
Diane is not afraid to be snarky. That is, she is not afraid to light a
match under someone's butt. Either that, or just throw fuel at it. Two
examples come to mind: The Depression Journal Debacle of 1996, and The
USA/Non-USA Debacle of 1997. She likes to mention other journals, and
isn't afraid to gossip a bit. I like the community spirit.
However, I warn her against using The Paperwork as a weapon or a bully
pulpit against her on-line colleagues. I agree that if someone can't
take the heat, they should get out of the kitchen; however, why does
the kitchen HAVE to be hot?
Kymm (The Mighty Kymm) said:
Christ, this is ridiculous! What's to crit?
I have read every entry of this journal and I'm on the notify.
This journal is flat out extraordinary. The design and graphics are lovely,
and the writing is great. Diane is the best example of making an ordinary
day into a good story--her greatest gift is that of storytelling, which is
what I look for in a journal. I don't mind her keeping a reign on her
emotions, I think vomiting up your feelings is overrated. If someone asked
me for the one journal above all others that they should read, and I wasn't
allowed to be greedy and say "mine", I'd steer them towards The Paperwork.
I want to be Diane when I grow up.
So, there you are, a love letter rather than a crit. Not useful, I know,
but that's all I can think of to say.
Mmmm-wha! Kymm, you wonderful thing you!
(Trust me, you don't want to be me when you grow up. Although I think you get some sort of award for being the first person to say that to me ever.)
Bek Oberin (Gossamer's Online Journal) said:
I've never read this one before.
For the purposes of the crit, I read the current month's entries using
a fairly recent version of Lynx.
First Impressions...
My first impression here was extremely good, because I picked up
the 1 August entry first and the first topic therein happened to be
about something ("what is a writer?") that I had been musing about
all week. Synchronicity is great!
Design...
Since I only read the journal in Lynx, I have no clue about the
graphical side of things.
The -- characters come out as -- in Lynx, which was a bit
annoying (it tends to get most of the &...; characters right, so
that surprised me) - what were they meant to be? I assume they
work better in Netscrape/IE, however.
Apart from that, all the stuff that makes things work in Lynx -
ALT tags, not using imagemaps or java for navigation were fine,
so it was quite navigable.
Navigation...
Navigation from the journal index page is great. No problems at
all. Having titles for the last few entries makes it easy to
figure out which have been read on repeat visits too (easier to
remember title than dates!).
Navigation from entry to entry is a little trickier, links back to
the index and previous entry at the bottom would have been
appreciated.
Topics...
I found this journal easy to get into quickly because rather than
skim over a squillion topics, there's some depth to each one. So
even in the first few entries I could follow what was going on.
Personal Annoyance: Journal entries that talk about other journals
usually annoy me, mostly because I don't read many (okay, -didn't-,
this list seems to be changing that!) so I've usually got no idea
what everybody's talking about. These were less annoying than usual
though, 'cause they actually explained why they were there.
Few characters mean it's easy to follow who's who even without
having read the cast list. One of my pet bugs is "X did this, and
Y did that, and Z did the other" and me wondering who X and Y and Z
are. And even when I couldn't figure it out, it didn't seem to
matter much because there was context around everything.
Writing...
Generic -stuff you learn in English class- is all great, as would
be expected :)
I've never seen a diary with a glossary before (but then I haven't
seen -that- many journals, for all I know it might be common!), and
I liked the idea. How about adding more bits - what's the 'buffy
spec'? Presumably I'd know if I went and read the archives, but I
don't have that much brainpower.
Also liked the little "lies, dammed lies and statistics" bit ... I
keep thinking about adding something like that to my journal, but -
unlike in Words - I don't think I write enough other stuff to
balance out the space it'd take up :-/
Overall...
Loved the humour, I laughed lots and generally finished up in a
much better mood than I'd been in when I started. Nice!
I'm putting this one on my "every week" list (I don't have an
every day list :)).
Dayrl (Journey of an aimless man) said:
The one mistake you can't make with this one is that Diane loves to write,
and she does it well. her style flows well and is scattered with humour. As
with most daily diarists I admire the effort they put into making sure they
have an entry every day, But sometime this leads to mundane content. Diane
did manage to keep my interest with her regular updates on her jogging
program (I'm going to start one soon .....not).Personally I don't like
commenting on content too much because it is their diary to do as they wish.
The Page design is great. It was easy to read and easy to navigate
Doug (Nilknarf!) said:
I've been reading Dianes' Paperwork since it came on Open Pages, and I am a
member of her notify list.
Diane is a compelling writer; I keep coming back, even though her entries
are not as personal as most online journalers. Her writing is a great deal
more polished than most (including mine, of course!) and I feel that she
spends a lot more time on them than the average. If this is a wrong guess,
the only other answer must be that she is a fantastic writer. I guess that
it could be both, though.
I love her page design. OK, so CJ did most of it... it is uniquely Dianes. I
pretty well copied it (I lifted and massaged some of the HTML {with, of
course, permission from her and CJ!}) in about the third reincarnation of
Nilknarf. I never could get it just the way I wanted it, however, dammit.
I will continue being a regular reader and a fan of Diane.
Tracing (Tracing) said:
I've been reading The Paperwork pretty much since it started, in the days
leading up to when she left to go to grad school (the days just before and
when I started my own journal). I'm on her notify list and up until before
I went on vacation (beginning of August) I read it pretty much on an entry
to entry basis. Since I've returned from vacation I've pretty much only
been keeping up with e-mail and two or three journals (its too overwhelming
and time consuming to try and catch up on the rest), The Paperwork not
being one of them, so for this crit I returned to catch up.
Diane's journal is a good daily stop for me. Now that I'm caught up, I
plan on doing the daily thing again. I enjoy getting a bit of her writing
regularly and am glad that she's been writing more regularly. Of course,
we'll see what happens when the semester starts again--it's that old
dilemma of when you have a life, you don't have much time to write about it.
One of the most interesting things I remember Diane doing recently was
pondering on motivational techniques. She got a lot of responses which she
posted, with comments. Lately, she seems to be at a bit of a flat point.
She still finds things to write about and to write about in an interesting
and humourous manner, but I look forward to things picking up again (ie
back to school) or when she engages in some harder questions about what is
going on.
Yes, I'd like to see more introspection although I do understand that her
journal is very public to people in her life. What I liked about her
motivational techniques thing was that she admitted vulnerability without
over-characiaturizing (is that a word?) it ie in a straightfoward way,
saying these are problems, these are some ways I have of dealing with them,
what ideas do you people out there have?
What I'd also like to see, I think, is a bit of letting loose, which
doesn't mean revealing deepest darkest secrets and feelings, but the
writing is always so polished and finished and _good_ that I'd like to see
more unfinished, raw, thought process stuff. I sense that Diane feels
pressure from herself and others to write well, and that this is the
primary goal.
The things I enjoy: the screenplay type snippets of conversations and
scenes, her opinions, the humour and the way she tells a story (eg about a
morning jog and personally, there's nothing I like less than jogging but I
still enjoyed the story), clean and reliable design (imagine my surprise to
see all the purple when I upgraded to a browser that could read it--I like
it), the relationship to Ceej--independent but connected.
Jane (xxx) said:
I had a couple of extended visits to The Paperwork before. One of the
first things that struck me was the simplistic design. I love it. Very
easy to read. [minor anal detail: The title of the entry isn't quite
center vertically. Told you it was anal.]
Diane is an engaging writer. It's very easy to just fall into the groove
when reading her entries. I like the "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics"
section. It's a good way of making yourself accountable for stuff.
"About a mile and a half at 5:30. Phooey..." I've been meaning to do
a little jogging myself. Perhaps, I should try that..
Cera (Time Stand Still) said:
Review: The Paperwork
Nutshell: Archtypical? Maybe.
How can I review The Paperwork? It's the first journal I started
reading, back in March or so. It set the standard for me --
everything I got from the Paperwork I expected from other diaries.
EMOTION & CONTENT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Diane's voice is dry, a little detached, very amusing. The
things she talks about aren't always inherently interesting to
me, but she's good at writing about them.
By now I've been reading The Paperwork for long enough that I'm fully
immersed in the illusion of knowing Diane. Sometimes I find myself
talking about something she wrote as though a friend said it to me.
It's a pleasant level of emotional involvement, but not one I think new
readers are likely to develop quickly. I gained it by reading her
entries from the summer of 1996, when her writing was much more
emotional than intellectual.
I'm not sure how much _Diane_ there is in her entries. She feels
like she's writing from a safe distance now -- or maybe it's just
that her life is calm and collected, aside from the external things
she describes. If so, more power to her -- G-d knows a journal
doesn't need to be angst-ridden to be interesting.
Still, I'd like to know more about what she's thinking, even if
it means less about what she's doing.
FORM
~~~~
Simple to navigate, nice complementary colours (how can you go wrong
with grey and purple?), helpful calendar of entries, helpful link
to next and previous entries, help list of who's who -- what could
be bad?
http://www.spies.com/~diane/Diary/August96/index.html is messed up,
unfortunately.
OBJECTIVITY
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Paperwork is good. It's crisp, it's polished, it's clean.
One might ask for more involvement, but that's a nitpick when you
look at the entirety.
Carl Q (Journal) said:
The difficulty in this critique of a journal thing is that we are not
critiquing a work of fiction. Ultimately we are critiquing the people
themselves. Isn't it strange enough that we put our journal online? Do
we have to start rating and comparing our journals? What a turnaround
from the traditional role of the journal!
The Paperwork was one of the first journals I started reading. I
actually forget how I got into the journal reading thing, but back when
Open Pages was a little one page list I read a few journals and stumbled
on The Paperwork. After a while I lost interest and stopped.
You would think this means something is wrong with it. But I have gone
back now and reread a fair bit, and I bring the following observations:
(1) The design is flat out fantastic. I don't think any journal comes
anywhere near The Paperwork for professional design. Almost too
professional, maybe. The thing that makes journals interesting is that
they are real people, real lives: not the slick commercial marketing
brochure that so much of the web is becoming. (This is the underlying
principle of a whole genre of pornography too, the "Amateur" film. Tired
of big, fake bouncing breasts and impossible penises? Watch real people
nervously fuck in the forest.) Well, The Paperwork is so well designed
it almost feels slick. I don't know what to say about this: you can't
say that good design is bad. You can't tell a person to shabby up the
site in order to make it seem realer -- that's just the next level of
slick, isn't it? I guess the main thing is that the interface works, it
does not distract from the text. And the text is what is important.
(2) The text. Except that this is a life. Are we critiquing each other's
lives? I guess I can't do that. What I can do, however is:
(3) The writing. Diane, she will be relieved to know, writes very well.
But...
(4) We can't write everything, when we write a journal. The last time
someone tried to write down everything that happened in one day we had
Joyce's Ulysses. And that would just take too long to load over a 28.8
modem, wouldn't it? So we have to pick and choose our stories. This is
what is interesting about journals: it almost doesn't matter whether the
life is fascinating or dull. A dull life may spark incredible writing.
Back to Joyce: his stories are not about incredibly exciting events, and
yet he explores the entire world in them. Likewise, as this Summer's
crop of brain dead action films proves, exciting events can be mistold
such that they are a terrible bore. Diane's choice of narrative, I
think, is the reason I stopped reading her journal back in the Spring
sometime. All it takes is rambling accounts of buying nail files to lose
me. And yet... this is her journal! Who am I to criticize her choice of
narration? Is she writing it for me, or for herself? She has to write
for herself, of course, that's why it's a *journal*. Obviously there was
something relevant to her in the nail file episode. The fact that it, or
many other single-paragraph asides, doesn't interest me is just my own
damn problem.
(5) In her own terminology, I guess I would have to name the Paperwork
as one of the Worthy (I think it's good, but I'm not hooked).
(6) What would I do differently? Well, I do do differently -- in my own
journal. If I were Diane I would probably do exactly what Diane does.
Because the fact is, Diane is already a writer. Why would she want to
carefully think out, design, plan, sculpt each day's entry? She
wouldn't. I do that because I am a writer frustrated in a non writing
occupation, so I craft my journal; I think about what was important or
interesting in my day, and I think about how best to narrate it, both
for my future self and my readers. It's not just a shopping list, it's
my own poor attempt at literature. This is what I like in other
journals, as well, but it's not what Diane is doing in her journal.
(7) For what her journal is, it's probably the best on the web.
------
Now that was a lot of verbose garbage, and I am sure anyone reading this
far wishes I had edited this down a little. Who do I think I am? Steven
King? But I did the trick of not reading anyone else's review first, and
I had a number of observations about the very effort of critiquing a
journal that just had to squeek themselves in. Hopefully future crits
will be more concise and useful.
My deepest apologies to Diane for using her journal as my first review.
Christopher (Enter The Simon) said:
I had never visited this site before.
I read all the entires for July and August.
What I liked:
The design and navigation. This is quite possibly the best designed site
I have ever seen. Low bandwidth, very attractive, and just generally
kick-ass.
The writing is great. It draws me in and keeps me there. The hour I spent
reading the entries just flew by.
She gave me a link in an entry (although I have a suspicion I'm in the
Car Wreck category). Bribes never hurt.
And I'm jealous that she got to go to the San Diego Con and meet Steven
Seagle. Next year, I'll be there too. So I vow.
What I didn't like:
Um......hold on a sec........damn. I can't even complain about ALT tags;
she put those on too. Damn.
In conclusion, this site rocks. I'll be back. Probably every day until I
finish the archives.
Al (Nova Notes) said:
This is one I really didn't have to go to back entries on--I usually hit
this journal once every other day, and invariably go back and catch up on
anything I missed. (I usually do three random hits on OP, on Archipelago,
and on Often a day. So since she's on both Archipelago and Often, chances
are I'll get to her at least once every other day.) Nor have I ever
regretted going there.
Like everyone else, I have no complaints with the navigation or html.
None. Beautifully, cleanly laid out.
The writing is clear and crisp. She rarely touches on things that deeply
matter to her, though, but I notice that, under the "distant" criticism,
she is beginning to dig a little deeper in the latest entry, where she
comments about how she initially had trouble accepting compliments. (Barb
was the same way, I kept on telling her she's beautiful, and she'd go,
"yeah, right" or "with THIS little makeup on"? until I started getting
sarcastic about how she takes compliments so well.) And I really felt for
her when she talked about the joke being played on her when she was called
by the most popular boy in school. It's a good change.
As far as the running entries , the "Lies, damn lies and statistics"
thing, I have a suggestion, as one who used to run (although now I'm
letting the swimming and running against resistance at the pool get my
aerobics)--more about what you see along the way. I remember I used to see
some interesting things while running (ah, an idea for another entry for my
journal) and unless you run every day along a country road where there are
no other people there and the scenary is exactly the same, a good writer
(and Diane is definitely one) if she trains herself to, she will find
herself noticing many more details and many interesting details to write
about. I bet, knowing her, it will even prove motivational--hey, I can get
my running done and make my journal even more interesting at the same
time--sort of thing.
Definitely an excellent journal.--Al.
Gus (Musings of the Gus, who else?) said:
Instead of saying what's been said, I'll add some things and maybe write
a critique that warrants a critique which in turn warrants chicken,
which in turn warrants a bit of pocket lint...
Diane has done a real service to the online journal community with the
section of her website dealing with journals. It's complete and it's
helpful. Without it, there would be no place to point to to say "here's
what online journals are about." Furthermore, her analysis of the
online journal community as it evolves is very helpful. I really enjoy
the days when she bitches about all the fresh new journals in
OpenPages. She did it back when it stood at 75, again around 125, then
150, and so forth. Then, there was that one time she broke it down and
told us the categories the journals fell into (Grinder did that too).
Many people think online journals that discuss online journals are too
exclusive or self-referential. But there's more to our little culture
than meets the eye. We are the only group IN THE WORLD that shares our
lives with each other on such a scale. Our webring, our mailing lists,
any possible chat forum, they really mean something because we
constitute a complete community, drawing in the outside world and mixing
it into a strange new paste in the digestion of our journals and our
comments about each others' lives. We're not just a bunch of people
discussing sports scores or ham recipes. Our lives are converged into
an uberlife. Okay, that's crackpot, but IM CRAZY IM CRAZY IM CRAZY!!
The point is, I think Diane (and a few others, perhaps OpheliaZ) realize
this, they get it. That's what I get out of her journal. Also, her
sense of humour is a much more subtle version of my own, but I recognize
it, and I like it. I'm entertained. I do agree that there is a
remoteness to Diane's voice, as if she doesn't want to let us in too
far. As an online journal keeper, I understand. There are reasons to
hold back. An online journal should be at constant war with itself to
either hold back and preserve the flow of the events it documents or
tell the honest story. Diane seems to steer more towards caution. If I
were her, I'd do more to cut loose on the parts she stands a good chance
of getting away with.
I think another thing Diane should do is play around more with the
language. I mean, like, bust into poetry or song. I keep reminding
myself to do the same, but I always hold back because I know bad poetry
when I see it, and when I write it, I have to see it.
Also: one day I'd be tickled pink if I surfed to Diane's page and a MIDI
started loading. She is one of the few who could get away with such an
abomination.
What am I supposed to say about navigation? It works.
Anything else? Oh yeah, Diane, glitz up your site's homepage. That's
an easy thing to neglect and you've neglected it for too long.
Amanda (Amanda's Precipice) said:
oh now look, what's to crit? I didn't abide by the rule of not reading
everyone else's crits before writing mine, but I needed *help* with this
one! I started *writing* my own journal very much on the inspiration of
Diane's journal; the crisp clear style, a life made interesting by her
skill in writing.
I've been reading the Paper work regularly since I first started reading
online journals, (about Mar97) and am on her notify list. I read all her
entries from March97 to the current one, and have gone back to reread them
for this crit. I will be reading her older entries once I get the chance.
I don't agree with the idea that Diane doesn't reveal what she's feeling,
it's just done very subtly, in hints and clues:
http://www.spies.com/~diane/Diary/Mar97/970306.html talking about stress
and sleep problems
http://www.spies.com/~diane/Diary/Mar97/970314.html moving pangs
and there are umpteen other examples of this.
I find a thought process in The Paperwork that I understand, so she must be
revealing, hey?
I think this style also makes the entries where she overtly cuts loose so
much more effective than entries in journals that are always OTT. For example
http://www.spies.com/~diane/Diary/August97/970821.html
is an eloquent and heartwrenching anecdote from childhood that moved me
deeply.
I'm particularly taken by her clever and suitable and funny titles for ech
days entries (with the italicised intor underneath, tres cool.). As
Diane's was the second online journal I ever read (can't remember the
first) , this was the first time I had seen this, but have yet to see
better. A particular favorite of mine is
http://www.spies.com/~diane/Diary/June97/970611.html
(you have to go in and look at the underneath bit. that being the
techincial term of course.)
Her essays on Web Journals, and resources are eridute and interesting to
read, and the new Spoilers Game is just plain fun.
The look of her site is sparse and elegant, the idea that it is inhabited
by a really truly writer is emphasised by this look; the font used in the
title graphic for example.
basically, this is in my top 10 journals, and has been in my Journals
bookmark since I created it.
Sarah (Some Days Are Like That) said:
Okay this is a long term read. I am on the notify list. I have read
just about every entry.
Look
Lovely, clear, absolutely no problems that I can see.
Perhaps time for a bit of a redesign? But really, the layout is so
nice, clear and consistent that if it was mine I would stick with it
too.
Content
Gees I made the mistake of reading other people's critiques of
Diane's journal before writing my own. It has all been said: clear,
sharp writing, wicked ever so slightly nasty-tough sense of humour (this is a
compliment, I like this).
Yeah she does keep readers at arms length. We dont get every burp
and fart of Diane's life (although wait a minute, I remember some
early entries on burping). She does not plunge us
into all that is going on in her life. This is okay, there is enough
there even in the made for public version of her life to keep me
interested.
You know what I really like? her comments of the differnent worlds
she inhabits: grad school, the scriptwriter's Hollywood, the computer
stuff. She is one of the few journallers who have given me a real
sense of her life and surroundings. Well done say I.
Jay (Ramblings) said:
i visit this journal from time to time...
usually at 5:30 in the morning when i can't sleep.
i'd eat cow fat to write as coherently and cohesively as she does.
i get really disturbed after reading diane's thingie.
i think it makes me realize how disjointed and rambly my crap is. o'well.
i have nothing especially critical to say... for some odd reason (i think
i like it too much) i seem to be devoid of opinions right now. i think
i'll end this before it turns into a big butt-smooching love letter.
Mikia (Mikia's Journal) said:
I went there with the feeling of not-want-to. This because everyone,
nearly, on this list has praised Diane to the roof. I felt as: I do not
want to read a very good journal with a very good language. I want to
read about life.
I read about 20 entries and ended because I found myself skimming. Where
is Diane? What does she think? I am not interested in things about
TV-series or who-I-ate-dinner-with. I want to know about the peson who
writes. Well, maybe I did not read enough but I can not stand it more
today. Maybe another day will I go back.
Other than that was the design and so on great. Keep up Diane but I will
probably not be back in a while.
Anita (Anita's Book Of Days) said:
After finding Diane Patterson's The Paperwork sometime this
spring, I went back and read from the beginning. I continue to
read her daily.
I enjoy Diane's writing. Her portrait of her life holds my interest.
Her being enrolled in a screenwriting program at grad school is
a continuing thread, and the adaptations of moving to LA for the
duration have given her lots to write about.
Life changes and disruptions mean interesting reading.
I enjoy the fact that Diane knows other diarists. Turns into a neat
shared universe!
Diane's tone is usually brisk and acerbic. She doesn't hold back,
she lets us know what she really thinks. This suits me fine.
Diane's design has stayed fairly constant since december, as far as I
can see. It works well. I do like having navigation to the next entry at the
foot of the page. (I'll have to add that back next month!) My only HTML
quibble is that she is still using with no text
or link colors set. Bad for folks with non-default color schemes, which
they may have for a good reason.
Scott (Words) said:
OVERVIEW
I've been reading The Paperwork on and off since early in the year, when I
started exploring journals a little more seriously. She earned lifetime
membership on the A-list after the Canadian Vacation episode this summer.
DESIGN
When I started my own journal, I wanted so badly to rip off this design. I
probably did, more than I know. No complaints at all. It's gorgeous, it's
functional, it loads quickly. Great design is apparent in the small
touches - my favourite example, the previous link at the top of an entry,
and the next link at the bottom. This tells me that someone has actually
thought about how a reader would use the page. It's been a while since I
looked at the rest of the site, but I expect that the same intelligence
and care has gone into its design as well.
I suppose I'd better complain about something, for form's sake. The text
used for dialogue (the movie script thing) is unreadably squinchy and
small in Internet Explorer (on Fensterfunfundneunzig) although it looks
fine in Netscape, of course. I have the teensiest, weensiest
typographic/aesthetic gripe: the rather baroque fleurons used to separate
paragraphs don't really match the battered typewriter font used for
textual graphics. A big gnarly asterisk might be more consistent.
I can't imagine a suggestion any smaller or more superficial.
WRITING - TECHNICAL
Why do I even bother with this section? She's a pro, and it shows.
WRITING - CONTENT
Diane's journal is very constrained. I wish she would venture beyond the
constraints, but I really have no right to complain about them, because
she states what they are and why they exist. The journal is a letter to
friends and family, and a morning warm-up for a professional writer. We
shouldn't expect confessions of unrequited adulterous lust, descriptions
of bowel movements, or vicious character sketches of unlovable relatives.
Within the parameters she has set, it's basically perfect. I only wish she
would aim her considerable firepower at a wider range of targets, be
weirder, more experimental.
Judging from some of the other critiques, this is not news. I can't really
tell Diane what to do here: it's her life, and her journal. If she
broadened the horizons, I would probably enjoy it more. I already enjoy it
rather a lot.
Darren (Darren Holloway's Life Log) said:
Somewhere along the line, Diane seems to have become the official standard
of what it is to write an online journal. This past week on d-c-l has been
a 50/50 split of "oooh, ahhh, ooh" and "argh, frames suck" :)
So I went into her journal, expecting to be impressed. And I was. Her
early layout was bare simplicity, slowly changing as she discovered more and
more HTML, settling into the current form for the new year. Her prose
style developing as she found her place in the medium.
But one thing that really got under my skin was that our messiah of journaling
seems to hate most of us... By the fourth time I read some variation of
"You talentless hacks should stop writing because your journals reflect
badly on mine by simple association", I got pretty upset. If Diane railed
against the crummy scripts her fellow screenwriters sometimes produced, I'd
probably gloss over it. But a community of people whose only wish is to
express themselves in a public medium with whatever talents they have?
It's like going into an elementry school art class and telling the students
they shouldn't try because they aren't already good at it.
We develop by doing. Please let us try.
Ahem. Now back to our regularly scheduled critique...
I liked the "Lies, Damn lies and Statistics" idea; a recurring thing every
day for the past while, organized where you come to expect to see it.
Diane's pages are well designed, and fortunatly she seems to resist the
temptation to have different graphics every few days, meaning that they
can be cached and the pages render quick enough I'm not tempted to turn
off images.
Her pages came up wider than the default size of a netscape window, forcing
me to resize my browzer a bit. I wouldn't mention this other than the fact
it made me go into the HTML to see what she was doing and found the following
comment:
- gratuitous table added to force decent, god-fearing margins
I'm still laughing about that one!
I'm not sure what character -- is supposed to be in HTML, but whenever
she uses it, the two adjoining words just run together on both the Sun
and Hewlett-Packard versions of Netscape.
The planet was Irata, not Itara in M.U.L.E. - it was Atari spelled backwards
(970112.html)
And if you bought boots in Banff, even on sale, you paid too much. It's
so much cheaper here in the city...
Bill (The Daily Epiphany) said:
I've been reading this journal fairly regularly for quite some time.
Form: Excellent layout. No real complaints. One little suggestion: since I
read most journals backward (starting at the most recent and moving back to
one I recognize) it would be nice to put a "back" link near the bottom of the
page in addition to the "next" one. As it is now, I read down, then have to
scroll back up to the top for the "previously" link.
Content: Very well written. You can sure tell that Diane takes her wordplay
seriously and wants to get it write.
Sometimes I get a little aggravated at putdowns (or perceived putdowns) of
things that are alien to Diane's way of life. Now, if she wants to put that
in (like many, many journals do), then fine. But I'd rather read about her
sphere, not her disgust with someone else's. I'm sure this makes little
sense, it's something that bothers me with a lot of journals, I'll try to
work it out clearer for another week.
Still, one of the best written journals, when she's up there getting the
Oscar for "Best Screenplay" we can all be sitting in our humble abodes,
staring at the tube, and boring our friends with "I read her journal
when.....".
Tracy (Whine & Cheese) said:
I had read this journal off and on for about 6 months, maybe? For the
purposes of this crit, I read all of last month's entries, and selected
entries over the span of the journal.
Her design:
I really have nothing to quibble about here... Diane's design is simple,
sleek, and easy on the eyes. I like that. The graphics are easy on the eyes,
and don't take a long time to load. The text is easy to read, including lots
of white space... it's hard to read a long section of straight text without
having any white space to break it up and give my eyes a rest. One problem I
noticed was with the month of December 1996... for some reason (it may have
been a server belch, I don't know), the entries for the first half of the
month aren't showing up at all (not linked or anything... probably deleted or
lost from the server), and the second half of the month's entries all show up
linked to one page, which is just one entry as far as I can tell.
Her writing:
At times I find her writing a little detached and hard to warm up to. I can
remember finding this journal through Yahoo a long time ago (probably when
she first started) and finding it hard to get into. I noticed with her later
entries there seems to be a subtle sense of wit... these entries, to me, are
much more accessible. I like the "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" portion.
It's something a bit different. As for commentary on the online journaling
movement, I've read the essay "Why Web Journals Suck", and also the response
she wrote to Todd Napolitano. To me, and this is just my humble opinion, I'm
not sure discussion of the online journal movement really belongs in a
personal journal. I think it could better be served by maintaining a specific
section of rants/raves/commentary... she does this already, and I encourage
her to flesh it out a bit.
To wrap things up, I'll continue to read this one, checking in every week or
so.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
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