Fiction

You need to read this first, or my response will make no sense. If you’re anything like me, that post won’t make any sense either, but that’s okay. I don’t think it’s meant to.

***

It had been a week since Bloggerbelle had talked with “Sarah” from the land of PR and she was beginning to feel like she’d been duped. She had read Sarah’s version of the conversation and she was rather displeased with how she’d been portrayed. She certainly wasn’t as stupid as Sarah thought she was and she suspected that Sarah was actually a witch, trained in the art of double talk and confusion.

After stewing on these facts for a while, she decided to travel to the land of PR and confront Sarah. Leaving her child with a baby sitter (Sarah might have claimed she was a beautiful princess of Blog, but she was wrong about a lot of things) she travelled for a long time to reach Sarah’s kingdom.

The people of PR were tricky you see and frequently moved around to curtail complaints, and avoid the worst of the dark and stormy weather.

When she finally found Sarah, they sat down together for a coffee. Bloggerbelle had lots of questions.

‘Sarah, when last we spoke, I walked away confused. We spoke about compensation and giveaways and yet, I don’t feel that my questions were addressed, or even adequately represented in the post you wrote.’ Bloggerbelle continued. ‘I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said I was asking for compensation. I was approached by people from the land of PR, who asked if I would review a product and host a giveaway. Then I was disheartened when my requests for compensation were turned down.’

Sarah looked at her and then spoke carefully, ‘Bloggerbelle, we discussed the problem of compensation, remember?’

‘I remember, and yet, I walked away without learning anything’. Bloggerbelle hardened her mind to any tricks that Sarah was trying to use on her.

‘The land of PR offered me a product to review and then giveaway on my blog and yet, they wouldn’t give me compensation for the time and effort required to run a giveaway. Tell me Sarah, are you being paid?’

‘Well, yes, I’m being paid but -’

‘Are you being paid in money? Honest to goodness money? Or does the King of PR send you home at the end of the week with product samples to see you through?’

‘It’s not the point! I’m doing my job!’

Bloggerbelle had thought about this on the long trip to the land of PR.

‘Sarah, I am doing my job too. I am spending time writing copy for a blog post, I am moderating comments and organising a giveaway, don’t I deserve to get paid also?’

Sarah looked annoyed. Very annoyed. Dark clouds gathered above her head and Bloggerbelle started to realise why the land of PR was dark and stormy.

‘I accept that you are taking time and effort to put together a blog post, but you’re a blogger! We don’t have a budget to pay bloggers!’

Bloggerbelle didn’t agree that there wasn’t a budget.

‘Sarah, I think you do have a budget, otherwise you wouldn’t have a client. I just don’t think you’re willing to share any part of your budget with bloggers.’

Sarah spluttered a bit and Bloggerbelle tried a different tack.

‘Sarah, I am using my trust capital and my sphere of influence to promote a product for your client. I have worked hard to build up an audience and regardless of what you think of their worth, I know that I am worth more than a few boxes of cereal.’

Sarah looked shocked as Bloggerbelle kept talking.

‘You might believe that we’re all alike in the Land of Blog Sarah, but we’re not. I know that if I turn down a chance to work with you that you will find someone else willing to work for nothing. I am okay with this. I am concerned with my long term reputation, not my short term gain. And frankly, if people assume I’m getting paid anyway, then why should I do the work for nothing?’

Bloggerbelle stood up quickly and nodded to Sarah. Without a backwards glance, she left Sarah still spluttering behind her.

While she wasn’t yet sure what she wanted to get out of her blog, she did know that she wasn’t prepared to sell herself for nothing. After all, how could she give her child all the pretty things in the kingdom if she wasn’t being paid for anything?

She knew that she was worth more than that and she wasn’t prepared to sell herself short.

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Part One

Part Two

***

Anna had been in the InterWebs for a few weeks now and she was slowly getting the hang of it. Food was different here and the noise when she was amongst the Mummybloggers was horrendous.

I’m happy here. This is good. This is what I wanted.

However as much as she thought it and repeated it like a mantra, she still wasn’t sure. The happiness was palpable and no one ever seemed to get tired. Anna opened her laptop to check her About Page again. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the thing tarnishing.

Sighing, she lifted her head and looked around.

The garish lights of the InterWebs were everywhere and she thought she could see the flashing .gif banners encroaching on her little bubble. Did it look like they were … alive? No. Surely not. She gave her head a little shake and bent back to her About Page, editing and re-editing the thing.

The Mummybloggers had been so lovely, taking her in and walking her through the Interwebs. She was going to be forever in their debt. They’d explained the importance of a Blogroll and a page for prospective advertisers. She was excited about the idea of making money from her writing.

She finished up her About Page and looked it over – the tarnish had retreated yet again, and Anna was looking crisp and confident.

And while I’m here, I may as well take care of the Blogroll.

Anna didn’t like her Blogroll much. The horrid thing was snappy and nasty, it kept trying to take her fingers off. It didn’t seem to matter what she did to try and contain it, the thing was never happy. Adding links, removing links, it never ended.

Maybe I shouldn’t have removed any links she thought. But no, those blogs were dead! Their owners disappeared back to Reality and I couldn’t really leave their links there, could I?

Nevertheless, the Blogroll snapped at her fingers and snarled as she tried to update it. It always seemed hungry and irritable. She had had other Mummybloggers complain that their links weren’t there and she was starting to get sick of the entire thing.

SNAP!

OUCH. FUCK.

It BIT ME.

The fucking thing BIT me.

Anna suspected that swearing had just undone all the work that she’d done on her About Page, but she didn’t really care. Holding her finger up to the light she looked for blood, before remembering where she was.

InterWebs. Right. You don’t bleed here. Not real blood anyway.

Making up her mind quickly, she sat on her Blogroll and as it fought and twisted away from her, she pressed the Delete button.

A little pop and it was gone.

Phew. All that angst and energy and it’s gone.

She felt lighter already. There had been a lot of complaining about who was and wasn’t on her blogroll and she might have made a few enemies when she couldn’t be bothered wrestling with the thing to add links to it.

Hungry little fucker.

She sucked on her finger and debated fixing her About Page yet again. Anna understood the importance of a good About page, the cynical guide in the beginning had explained it, but really, the tarnish was driving her wild.

As she looked around, someone sidled up behind her and sat down with a flump.

‘Arrgh!’

Anna jumped.

‘Who are you?’

‘Susan.’

Anna was expecting a little more information than that.

‘You scared me.’ She extended her hand. ‘I’m Anna.’

‘Sorry. I’m not normally here on the Mummyblogger side of things.’ Susan twirled a lock of hair, looking a little ashamed. ‘I’m not really welcome here.’

Anna looked her up and down. She looked nice enough.

‘Why is that?’

‘I disagreed with Jennifer once. In the beginning.’

Jennifer was the leader of the Mummybloggers, the bubbly blonde woman who had welcomed Anna in the weeks previously.

Anna gave a wry laugh. ‘I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with Jennifer.’ Secretly she thought I can’t imagine anyone having the guts to disagree with Jennifer.

‘Oh I did. It was …. well. It wasn’t pretty.’

Anna laughed again. ‘I can imagine.’

Susan looked at her. ‘You don’t look happy.’

Anna sighed. She had been hoping that the recent edits on her About page would have hidden that.

‘I’m not.’

‘Why?’

It all poured out in a rush. ‘My About Page keeps tarnishing, no matter what I do. My Blogroll just BIT me and I deleted it – all that work, gone. The lights here make my head hurt and if I have to listen to someone else rave about how cuuuuuute their kid is I might just puke. Where is the real life? These women, every single thing is perfect and it’s driving me mad, because I’m not perfect too.’

Anna stopped to breath and Susan put her arm around her shoulders.

‘Anna? I know exactly how you feel.’

They looked at each other and burst into giggles.

‘Oh my God, I thought I was the only one. I haven’t sworn for WEEKS and my head hurts from being positive and shiny.’

They laughed harder.

‘Would you like to meet some real women?’

‘God, would I ever?’

‘We’ve got our bad apples too, but we’re all real. I promise.’

‘What do you call yourselves? I was told we needed to know what we were in order to cope here.’

‘We label ourselves Personal Bloggers, but really, we’re just Bloggers. Most of us are Mummyblogger rejects. So we’re probably Mummybloggers too, just not happy happy joy joy Mummybloggers.’

Susan stood and Anna followed suit. ‘Come on’ said Susan ‘We’re not that far away.’

Susan walked off and Anna followed close behind her.

Finally, she was going to meet some real people.

Well.

As real as anything ever got in the InterWebs.

***

Part Four Here

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