When I first posted The Dark Side (of blogging) I never expected the outpouring of support. The post was merely written to bring awareness to a situation that needed to be recognized and discussed.
When I first received the email in question, I made a comment on Twitter, that I had received a “hate mail” only to discover that my fellow bloggers had received hateful and hurtful comments recently as well. It was directed to a post at J. Kaye’s Book Blog entitled, Book Bloggers: Warm Community or Backstabbing Bitches. The subject of this post appalled me. (Could we be more petty towards each other?) I emailed J. Kaye that evening and explained my situation, asking if she cared that I post something similar that had happened to me recently. Because, and only because, I wanted the community to know that although blogging is a wonderful experience it has it share of tribulations and this was one of them. I never meant for the community to come to my defense.
On the other hand, to say that I was not hurt or in doubt of myself, because of the email and the comments that were made, would be a lie. It was upsetting to be attacked in such a distasteful manner. As much as I knew I shouldn’t let it bother me, it still did. But the response that I received was overwhelming. I was truly amazed. And I cannot thank you enough. You have solidified the reasons why I love belonging to such an awesome community, and why I enjoy doing what I do.
Thank you all for the emails, the tweets, the blog posts, the comments, the phone calls! It was greatly appreciated.