THREE WEEKS OR SO BACK, we discussed the latest online craze, the weblog–a kind of Website that contains little or no original content, but still expresses its author’s personality and tastes through a carefully-chosen set of links to content on other sites.

Online journals are sometimes listed in weblog sites’ link-lists of other weblogs, but they’re very different. They’re like weblogs’ mirror images. They’re all or almost-all made up of original writing, usually very personal writing.

Like the human race itself, web-journals are a diverse lot. Some are better designed than others. Some are better written than others. Some have a lot more to say than others.

But they all involve ordinary, usually non-pro writers taking an ongoing look at the worlds around them and putting short, pithy thoughts about them up for all to see.

(Well, maybe not “all”: Some journalers include home-page disclaimers along the lines of, “If you personally know me, please do not read this.”)

Some places where you can learn more:

• Pacific Northwest Journalers, a mini-portal page to the ongoing works of 45 regional first-person persons.
• The Definitive Source for Online Journals, a much larger list of journals and writings about them.
• Open Pages, a Webring connecting some 300 “people who share their everyday lives online.”
• Why Web Journals Suck, Diane Peterson’s long essay/rant about the exploding quantity and variable quantity of these sites. “Everyone says they want to be a writer–well, here’s your chance! And few people seem to know what to do with this opportunity.”
• Metajournals, “A ‘Zine for Journal Writers.” Blurbs and listings for journals new and ongoing, plus think-pieces about the whole phenom.
• Diarist.net, a “starting-point for both writers and readers of online journals.” Includes links to “1,477 literary exhibitionists.”

Some examples:

• Abada Abada by Jessamyn West. Thoughts about weddings, comix, bingo parties, life in Ballard, local music, and a group of “Women Who Make Things.”
• Calamondin by Judith. “At the top of the list of small things making me happy today: snapdragon ikebana.”
• Tremble by Todd Levin. “Bbecause of a diet of refined sugar (and spoiled meat), i have been incapable of focusing for longer than the 45 seconds it takes me to boot up my computer.”
• Anita’s Book of Days by Anita Rowland. “It’s a very luxurious feeling, to be reading and enjoying a book and knowing that you won’t be finishing it for a while. It’s like sinking into a warm bath..”
• Dancing in the Fog by Celeste Foster. “The problem with literature is analysis, and the problem with analysis is writing the stupid essay.”
• Words by Scott Anderson. “What could I have done to deserve this, I asked. Was I gloating about our recent turns of good fortune? Was I guilty of hubris? My god is a vengeful and capricious god.”

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!: More live events for The Big Book of MISC. are comin’ at ya. The next is Thursday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m., at Borders Books, 4th near Pike in downtown Seattle. Be there or be a parallellogram.

TOMORROW: Two new slick print mags, plus “social phobia” as a chemically-treatable condition.

ELSEWHERE:Day trading’s described as “Doom for lonely grownups, a single-shooter fantasy with NASDAQ supplying the mutant targets”…