benlehman

Uh-oh. You have fans. Now what?

The discomfort that you feel when a random stranger knows all about you because they read your blog? That seems pretty common for anyone with a fan base. Your options seem to be to either get over it, or to turtle up.

Frankly, I'd advise you to try and deal with it. If for no other reason than turtling up would probably hurt your sales. People like authors who seem to be open and accessible. (That's why I read Neil Gaiman's blog. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/officialgaiman/)) I agree with the common advice here: friends-lock the really private stuff, and keep blogging publicly otherwise.

(As for your friends without LJ accounts: I have no idea. You could just e-mail them the text of your post. Perhaps someone more tech-savvy than I might have a better solution?)

And finally, this is probably obvious to you, but in case it isn't:

Never write down anything you wouldn't want made public some day.

Accounts can be hacked; diaries can be stolen. Nothing written down is ever really secret.