When I started my LiveJournal, I figured it would be for all my non-Star Wars meta, Harry Potter and such. I already have a Star Wars blog, I reasoned, so I won't be posting SW stuff in the LJ. But it hasn't worked out that way. Sometimes I cross-post things. And sometimes I post SW stuff on my LJ that I don't post here. Stuff that I don't really consider posting here, often. I recently realized this, and started wondering why.

Part of it might be some vague feeling that the audiences are different and will be interested in different things, but I'm not sure I have enough opinions on how different the audiences are or aren't to really be making unconscious decisions based on that vague impression. Besides, it's not like I'm a great judge of what audiences want anyway. I usually just write what I like and hope someone else will be interested too. Still, this could be a factor. (Actually, I think there is a lot to think about here, but I haven't thought about it enough yet.)

But I think there's something even more influential: appearances. My LiveJournal looks like an online personal journal to me. It has some color and borders, but it's pretty simple, and the comments pages are just black and white text - it's like a Word (or OpenOffice) document, something I can modify endlessly. Something unfinished, in progress. My starwars.com blog, on the other hand, is far more graphics-heavey and slick-looking. It has a picture, lots and lots of little clickable icons, and bold, snazzy borders with shadows and everything. It doesn't look nearly as much like a personal journal to me. It looks more like a magazine article. It looks like something finished. Now, I don't think there is a lot of difference between how I write on the two sites, but I think there is some. I think I have more rambly explorations in my LJ, and more structured pieces here. (Not that I don't ever ramble or go on tangents here, or that I don't ever have structured pieces on LJ - it's just a tendency.) Is it a coincidence that I write more journal-y (go off on tangents, work through things as I write, etc.) on the site that looks more journal-y to me? (I mean, I started with an idea about Luke and the Sand People on my LJ, then added some after thinking about it more when I posted it here. And just posted a really rambly thing on LJ. Works-in-Progress: LJ. (More) Finished piece: here.) I think there might be some subconscious influence there.

This isn't strictly about appearance - more about format - but it sort of fits. (Have to try the rambling/tangents thing here more to see if I can do it!) The comment systems are different too - LJ allows more and longer responses than here, which allows for more tangents and working through things at length. It seems easier to write a rambly blog that's essentially thinking out loud when you can get responses that do the same and raise lots of potential tangent-topics than when you can only get short, to-the-point responses. The starwars.com blog commenting system seems more suited to more structured pieces with something at least approaching a thesis. Again, I don't think it's an enormous divide, but it is a difference.

I don't know. Does anyone else think the appearance of a blog affects what they write slightly, or am I just weird? Or am I just slow to catch on and stating what's obvious to everyone else?