You're writing from an America Online (AOL) address, so I'm going to assume that you're talking about the America Online service, Kimi. As you say, the first challenge with AOL is to find the My Journal section in the first place. I logged in - using the Mac software - and am trying to figure out where My Spaces is located.
Logically, I type in "My Journal" into the search box, just to find that AOL has taken me out of its site and shown me Web-wide results, the first of which is my-journal.com, which definitely isn't what we seek.
On the other hand, reading it a bit more closely reveals that the graphic at the top of the page isn't an advertisement, it's the following:
That looks promising. I click on Journals Help then Creating A Simple Journal and Announcing Your Journal. Here's what AOL has to say at this point:
When you click Next after assigning your Journal to a community, a second page of the Create a Journal form appears. This gives you the following choices:
• You can add your first entry.
• You can tell your friends about your Public Journal or add readers to your Private Journal.
• You can change your Journal's address (URL).
If you've created a Public Journal and you select the "Tell others about this Journal" check box, a new page opens. You can enter up to fifty AOL screen names, either manually or by selecting them from your address book. An e-mail is sent to each of them, announcing the name and location of your Journal. You can also add a the bottom section with a description or other information. This is included in the e-mail, which is sent when you click the Send button.
After your message has gone out, you'll receive confirmation within the Create a Journal form. Click OK to proceed to your Journal.
Note:Even though non-AOL members can read and comment on your Journal, you can't send the announcement e-mail to them. If you want to let them know about your Journal, you'll have to inform them on your own.
That should help you figure things out in terms of your public URL. Remember, you can always send yourself a notification of your new journal / blog and therefore figure out its public address too.
In terms of having email automatically turned into a posting, I don't believe that the AOL My Journal system supports that feature. I might be wrong, but there's no clue in the help system about how to accomplish this fairly advanced task, so I surmise you're stuck having to go to the online system and enter your messages by hand.
If you want to get a taste of the AOL My Journal system, you can also start with John Scalzi's By The Way... site. John is paid by AOL to blog, so he can also serve as an additional resource for you as you learn more about My Journal for yourself.
Good luck to you!
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