On the Internet, every day, thousands of anonymous comments are left. Trolls and pseudonyms, all mixed up in a giant stew of anonymity, hiding behind a false name and a false face.

Sometimes, one of those comments is left on a blog of mine and oooof, goes the wind out of my sails, because accusatory comments are unpleasant, at best. Usually, anons cover their tracks well enough, but sometimes, an IP address is left unblocked and there is a virtual paper trail left to follow.

This is what happened to me a little while ago. I followed a virtual paper trail and found my anonymous commenter in a place where they really weren’t anonymous at all. I screenshotted the evidence and spent three days, riding the high of “I worked out who you are” before crashing back down to earth because, “I worked out who you are”.

It’s never nice discovering who dislikes you enough to say unpleasant things, hiding behind an assumed name and a veil of pseudo-anonymity.

**

I’m a nice person. I’m kind to animals, I smile at strangers. I offer to help people when they drop the contents of their purse on the supermarket floor and I will willingly give support to someone who needs it.

I genuinely like people. I like hearing your stories and listening to your experiences.

I am a good person.

I also tell the truth, stand up for myself when I think things are unfair and refuse to stay silent if I think something is a problem.

Being kind and being strong, these are not mutually exclusive things – however, being truthful on the Internet, being strong and standing up and saying there is a problem – this is not what people want you to do.

No, it seems that people want happy happy joy joy and silently whispered conversations. They don’t want to know what I truly think.

Taylor Mali said: I implore you. I entreat you. I challenge you. To speak with conviction. To say what you believe in, in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it.

[vimeo source]

Those words have stuck with me. I have the courage to own my own convictions. To stand behind my words and to say what I feel, when I feel it.

And I would like to not be ostracised for daring to have an opinion.

Because from where I stand, that’s what it feels like.

I look around. It’s dusty here and a little damp. It seems I left my blog in the darkness and it’s started to grow moss.

Never mind, I like moss anyway. It gives character and somewhere for the bugs to crawl. What use is light if there is no darkness to balance it out.

I’ve been stuck. Caring too much, wanting too much, not wanting enough. The landscape has shifted under my feet and riding out an earthquake appears to be harder than surfing a wave. I don’t want what you’ve got, I want what I want.

I want to write. And I’m going to, even if I’m tired. Even when it hurts, I’m going to write.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

***

I’ve lived in my house for three years now and it wasn’t until my grandmother died that I hung pictures on the walls. Her pictures, the paintings and photographs that had lived in her house for as long as I could remember. I hung them and I thought of her and missed what used to be.

But you can’t go backwards. This life of ours dictates forward movement only and here I am, moving along. A snails pace sometimes, but it’s movement. Time passes and I pass with it.

Yesterday, I went looking for a manila folder I knew I had. Dusty and tired I eventually found it, the detritus of high school. Inside, paintings from another time, done when I had time to spare and no one wiping snot on my trousers.

Carefully, I pinned them to my walls, wondering if I was still the same person who painted them.

I haven’t painted in years, now.

***

Blogging is strange for me lately. Peeling off layers of my own skin to poke around underneath and see what falls out.

It’s still a shark tank out there and while I’ve got my oxygen, I’m not sure I’m going to last much longer.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

***

The InterWebs had gotten hot and sticky and Anna’s hand still throbbed from the bite her Blogroll had given her. While not a nasty bite by any stretch of the imagination, Anna couldn’t seem to find the place in her head where she could erase the bite and move on, and so it continued to hurt.

Susan had brought her into the fold of the personal bloggers a few days ago now and she was slowly settling in. There were a lot of bloggers still racing around and trying to outdo each other, but it wasn’t anything that Anna couldn’t cope with. The pace was less frenzied in this section of the InterWebs and while the advertising continued to flash at her, it didn’t seem quite so bright anymore.

The personal bloggers were an interesting mix of people, some parents and some not. The parents amongst them tended to call themselves Mummyblogger Rejects, which seemed a little harsh to Anna, surely the Mummybloggers didn’t reject anyone? She’d only left because she couldn’t seem to fit in and that was her own issue.

Anna wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore and her grandiose dreams of InterWeb life seemed a very long way away, when compared to the unReality of the situation she was in.

Since she had moved over to the Personal Blogger section of the InterWebs, Anna had felt like she could breathe a little easier. It wasn’t so perfectly shiny and happy over here and there was some grit and substance to the bloggers, which she liked. It suited her here, better than the Mummybloggers had, with their perfect children and smiling personas.

It’s strange though, thought Anna, I’m not sure what is actually different here. The label, yes, the pressure, probably, but these women, they’re all the same really.

Anna was busy pondering this when a group of women ran past her, looking frenzied. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening, when the shouts started.

“BANDWAGON!”

“QUICK, SOMEONE CATCH IT!”

The women jostled her and she found herself being moved along with the group, quite without wanting to. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be trampled.

The shouting started again.

“QUICK QUICK, THERE IT GOES!”

“DID YOU GET IT? DAMMIT, SOMEONE CATCH IT!”

Carefully, Anna maneuvered herself to the side of the crowd, to try and see what was happening. The press of bodies didn’t make this easy and they were running faster and faster. Beside her ran a stocky looking women with dark hair. Anna tugged on her sleeve.

“I’m new here, can you tell me what’s happening?”

The stocky woman looked at Anna, and answered without breaking stride. “It’s the Bandwagon love, we’re trying to catch it.”

Anna wasn’t any less confused. “A bandwagon? But what’s a Bandwagon?”

“You jump on it love, and do things as a group. They’re powerful, Bandwagons are.” The stocky woman put her head down and ran faster.

“But why?” Anna asked.

“Why love? Because we can. Why not? There’s power in groups love, lots of power.”

Without a backwards glance, she pushed through the people in front of her and disappeared.

Anna wasn’t certain this was what she wanted to be doing, but the push and crush of the crowd made it impossible for her to escape.

Suddenly, a giant cry went up from the crowd and the running slowed. It appeared the Bandwagon had been caught.

The excitement in the crowd was palpable and Anna had to fight to not get caught up in the heady rush of peer pressure. The people behind her were pushing forwards and she moved with the crowd, completely trapped now. Keeping her eyes on the backs of the women in front of her, she moved along.

Then she was being helped up into the Bandwagon and even though it looked like she would never fit, a space opened up for her. The stocky woman was sitting across from her.

“I see you made it here okay then love?”

Anna nodded, still out of breath from the chase.

She looked around.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“Why, we’re on the Bandwagon love! It’s going to empower us to make changes in the InterWebs and we’ll be able to use it to our advantage!”

“What kinds of changes?” Anna was normally a smart woman, but the Bandwagon jumping confused her.

“Well, this Bandwagon is about fairness for all bloggers. It’s showing us all how to behave, so that we can all get along. Isn’t that just what we need?”

Anna looked away. She didn’t think that this was exactly what she needed.

“Where do Bandwagons come from then?” she asked after a time.

“This one’s Jennifer’s love. She’s had some cracking ideas lately, ways for bloggers to get along and make money and it’s just lovely.”

Anna was even more dubious about the Bandwagon now. The rumours about Jennifer had been steadily growing since she left the Mummyblogger camp – rumours of Jennifer making decisions for the entire community and there was talk of a rethinking how a community works. She wasn’t sure she wanted a Queen in the InterWebs, not even a queen of the relatively small Mummybloggers.

She looked around, trying to work out if she could get off. It looked like there was a path back off to one side, if she could just reach it. Standing up, she braved the crush of sitting people.

“Excuse me, sorry, can I just get through…. thank you so much.”

A few minutes and countless trodden toes later, she was able to climb off the Bandwagon.

Standing in the open air again, she was able to breathe.

Looking around, there seemed to be a few bloggers who had decided that this bandwagon wasn’t for them, or who hadn’t climbed on in the first place. Anna smiled at them and one woman smiled back, before walking over.

“Are you okay? You look a bit shaken.”

Anna laughed. “Yes, I’m fine. My first experience of a Bandwagon, that’s all.”

“Ahhhh.” The woman smiled knowingly. “That’s okay, you get used to them. The key is finding out whether it’s something you truly believe in before you jump on.”

“I know that now” said Anna.

With one last pat on the shoulder, the woman made to walk off.

“You’ll be okay?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be fine.” said Anna.

Taking a deep breath, Anna turned around and walked away. Behind her, the Bandwagon trailed off, taking the bloggers with it.

Anna was sure that Bandwagons were perfectly alright for some people, in some cases.

But she just wasn’t sure that they were right for her.

It’s a balancing act, knowing what to write about on the internet. An intricate dance of stories and perspectives, making sure you don’t put words in someone’s mouth and side-stepping the issue of privacy invasion. Knowing when to speak and when to hold your tongue, when to write and when to walk away.

It’s about more than not wanting to damage your own brand with drama.

It’s about knowing that truth can be fluid sometimes and not wanting it to be; wanting truth to be truth and lies to remain unspoken.

It’s a fine line.

***

My son is sad and his warm mass draped on my lap and snuggled to my chest brings to the fore all my maternal feelings. It doesn’t matter than he is dribbling in my cleavage or that I am not able to move, he is warm and sad and I am his mother and I can fix this, this time. When he is older and I cannot surround him with my arms, then he will be sad and my heart will break at how useless magic kisses have become.

I put him to bed with a warm bottle, knowing that he is tired and listen to him cry anyway. This is hard. This breaks my heart. This is probably best for all of us, that he sleeps now.

***

I send my daughter outside, to play fortheloveofgod go and play. She lies on the trampoline for an hour, not moving and I watch her as I wander around the house. She is tired and miserable and sad and bendy. She comes back inside and we lay together on the couch and I feel the heat of her. A temperature rising, her joints aching. I thank everything that I have panadol handy and I dose her up and lay her in bed. She is limp and miserable and I lay with her for a time.

Motherhood is hard.

Motherhood is beautiful.

***

The truth is hard.

The truth is beautiful.

With all this talk of authenticity, I can only be myself and this is how I am in real life too. I might not talk about all of it, but I’m honest at the core.

There are things happening and things brewing and at this point, I’m not sure I’m content to sit back and say nothing, but the drama and the angst, I don’t want it.

So I’m saying: Watch and listen and see what happens. Sit here alongside me and we’ll eat popcorn and wait for the fallout. Because it’s coming and it’s not going to be pretty.

Jaded.

I am jaded.

Blogging has changed so quickly that I am left behind, wondering how to swim in this shark tank. When did blogging become about PR deals and not the writing?

Maybe I’m just a bitch.You kids get off my goddamned lawn.

I want more from this. I want my writing to be brilliant. I want fans, across the globe. I want time to write a book, to lose myself in my own fantasy. I want to connect with like-minded people and find more brilliant blogs. To be entrapped in a blog’s story from the moment I start.

I want more.

***

Something happens. Something good, for me, and I float on the happening for weeks. I adore it and then it ends and I am forced back into reality with the screams of my children ringing in my ears.

This is the come down. I knew it was coming, but my head being all fucked up has surprised even me. I want to hibernate, to pull the blankets over my head and refuse to leave my own head.

Unfortunately, this is not how reality works.

***

I want to be bigger than myself.

I want you to want more.

I want my words to flow out of my fingertips and onto the screen with ease. I’m sick of pulling words the way dentists pull teeth.

I want my dissatisfaction to fade away.

I want a lot of things.

***

Tell me, who do you read when you’re feeling dissatisfied? What do you do?

Because whatever I’m doing isn’t working so well.

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.

It feels like I’m banging my head against a wall, or swimming against the tide. Trying to get noticed in the swell of mummybloggers and professionals, the Internet is a shark tank and I’m not kitted up for the biting that inevitably follows.

I want more, I want to be noticed and universally adored – despite knowing that it’s insanity to want universal adoration, something that only exists inside the minds of slightly insane movie starlets.

Nevertheless, I click through and look at my stats and content myself with writing consistently well and still it feels like it’s not enough. I want ….. something. Something more.

I think I’ve flown, THWAP, up against the glass walls in here.

What the fuck hit me?

Discontentment.

Huh.

I read amazing words and yet those women, they don’t write often enough. I respond on twitter to someone who appears to be no more popular than anyone else and never get a response. What sets him aside from us, that he can afford to ignore the plebs, those of us he deems below himself.

Being noticed for writing on the Internet feels like being noticed for wearing designer shoes in a strip club. It’s a world of instant gratification and the time it takes to read words and let them sit inside you isn’t taken, not when you’ve got BOOBS and AWESOME and HAHAHAHA hiding over there.

So they click away and it feels like I’m doing the same thing, over and over and not getting anywhere.

And it goes around and around and around.

Welcome to my merry-go-round. Want to come and sit up here and throw peanuts at the people who don’t want to notice us? You’re more than welcome to sit here by me.

One of my early posts is being highlighted by the lovely Kristin, as part of the AMB blog carnival.

You can read the post here, or you can read all the other talented entries here.

Something happens and I stand up, walk away from my computer and stab myself in the eye. Falling forwards, I lay in a pool of blood and wonder if this is less painful that what I’ve just witnessed.

Wait.

Rewind.

Something happens and I stand up and walk away from my computer.

That’s where this story ends.

***

Notice me! Notice me!

We all shout it.

This is the InterWebs and we’re all crying to be noticed, while hiding in our corners, under a blanket. We’re a giant flock of male robins, trying to impress a future mate. We dance and we sing and we flap and somewhere, another bird watches and wonders what the fuck?

Screeching to be noticed, hoping that we’ll find an audience.

It’s sort of interesting.

***

If you scorn a label, only to be noticed and slapped with that label, do you tear it off and walk away?

Or do you preen, happy to have been noticed in the first place.

Which is more important, being noticed? Or your truth.

***

This is my truth:

I steal time away from life in order to write.

Or is it -

I steal time away from writing, in order to live.

I’m not so sure anymore. Everything is tied up in my imagination, in my could’s and possibly’s and maybe’s that I forget that I’m still sitting in front of my computer watching a cursor blink on an empty page.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

My toddler laughs and while I watch, a bird flies – THWAP – into the window.

That is my truth.

***

How long until we hit the glass in here and come up short; left stunned and lying flat on our back.

What on earth hit me?

What on earth did I hit?

***

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

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