Tracey, the mom running sweetney.com, put up an incredibly inspiring story Thursday about becoming the famous full time blogger she is today.
Sharing with us her amazing tale of triumph over the dual hardships of being financially supported while she got her blog off the ground and not having a full time job to distract her, Tracey tells us how she managed to succeed after her divorce took away her money husband/bankroll moved out:
In the blink of an eye, I was suddenly put in the panic-inducing position of having to either make blogging into something resembling a real, self-supporting job, or put it back in its place as a pure, free-time-only hobby. After all, I’d no longer be able to spend several hours a day writing online if I went back to work full-time. Most people with full time careers outside of the home in addition to families and lives can’t afford the time to post every day, or even every other day, let alone to multiple sites every day as I was. And so I was presented with a choice: make writing online financially viable or put it on the back burner alongside knitting and mosaic-making and all the other hobbies I wouldn’t have time for anymore.
Tracey goes on to tell us she chose to make blogging her career, and succeeded – and she bravely refuses to let you tell her blogging isn’t a job!
And so when I read self-righteous posts from bloggers who reject putting ads on their sites because they “aren’t for sale,” I can’t help but bristle with resentment over the implication that those of us who are trying to make a living off doing the thing we love just aren’t as authentic simply because, unlike them, we need to make an income to survive.
Tracey had a choice – get a full time job and never blog again (because who has the time to post when they work?) or continue to provide you people with her inspiring existence. Luckily for the internets, she chose the latter.
I personally cannot believe anyone would hold it against her for choosing to stay home and pursue the exhausting work of hitting ‘publish’ rather than secure her financial future with some death cubicle. Why can’t we women stick together instead of all this girl on girl hate? If you folks could stop being jealous and drinking ham water for one minute you might agree that Tracey is awe inspiring, and deserves our applause for making it clear that:
Some of us don’t even have a spouse to share our financial burdens with. Some of us have to fight alone, without anyone else to rely on for financial support, in order to do this thing we love if we want to keep doing it as devotedly, and regularly, as those of you with breadwinning husbands do.
She did this all on her own with no help after those first 5 years of financial support before she got divorced. I hope we can all come together and applaud her bravery through adversity!
SO BRAVE.
PS At 7 in the morning, the only pseudosentence I can form is “SO BRAVE.” And I only wrote it twice! *sobs into breakfast chili*
Now I really want to bust out my “Prince of Egypt” soundtrack and sing like a nutter…
DELIIIIIIIVER UUUUUUS…
Posting some ad widget’s on her page was hard work you know. Also, she is just like Shakespeare cos he got paid for his play’s
The first performance of Hamlet, scholars have recently discovered, was funded through banner ads (actual cloth banners in those days) from Higginbotham’s Meat Pyes and Lord Robert Cecil’s Mutual Assurance Enterpryse, Now Offering Assurance ‘Gainst Brigands and ye Witches.
You couldn’t click on the banners, though. Well, you could, but then the ale-soaked ruffians holding them would thrash you soundly.
“Lord Robert Cecil’s Mutual Assurance Enterpryse, Now Offering Assurance ‘Gainst Brigands and ye Witches”
DIES oh the Cecils. Father and son were my fave E1 era men.
The “meat pyes” in particular made me laugh like a freaking loon.
Love it.
Poor thing had to struggle so much. And all on her own. How long did she last after her husband left, toiling in the shark-invested blog waters, until she roped in her first boyfriend and bedmate?
By her own telling, they split in June. Boyfriend left his wife and 2 kids and moved in 6 months later.
And there was a boyfriend in-between. He wrote exactly one poorly received post on MamaPop and was never heard from/about again. He had a web presence of his own and didn’t live local to Baltimore. I remember her actually tweeting for local job hook-ups for that guy so….had something come through she would have moved that one in just as quickly as she did Charlie. Who, let’s remember, had NEVER MET HER before leaving his wife and kids for her. Uuuuugh. Yes, yes, she struggled mightily with being single for an entire, what, two months after her husband moved out? We should all be so, so strong.
Wait, what? He never met her before leaving his wife and kids?!
Yes. NEVER MET HER. NEVER NEVER NEVER.
You are right. How could I forgot about the shamed and mysteriously vanished boy toy #1. The internet is MEAN.
Um, she’s not even divorced yet. They’re paper married for health insurance. Also? Her live-in, one man bed bug infestation left his wife and two children in Kentucky for Sweetney. I believe he is also, not divorced.
Sorry, when she said her marriage “ended” in 2009 and I saw she moved in a new guy I just assumed she was divorced. Sorry for the mistake, I don’t follow this person’s life very closely.
Oh PP, HUGS!
I just wanted to add some info to further describe just how ridiculous Sweetney is.
HUGS! I edited the post to correct it. Here, share my ham water!
Mmm. Hot ham water!
so watery…and yet there’s a smack of ham to it.
Uh oh, bad choice Sweetney! Your meal ticket has to pay child support first, then comes you. Don’t lose your day job! Oh, that’s right…..
Her hobby IS her job! PROFESSIONAL!
So she still has health insurance. Oh man I hope her blog income can support paying for an insurance policy without employer subsidies when the time comes.
Exactly. Being “paper married” for health insurance IS in fact being financially supported by someone else. That would be a huge expense every month that I doubt even her ever heroic blogging would cover.
yet another tick in the “staggering lack of self awareness” column. This woman thinks she’s somehow put upon and struggling…What is this? I don’t even.
No kidding. She’s another one who reminds me of my SIL (she’s a gold mine train wreck for snark)…Whining about all the adversity she’s overcome by being a single mom (whose ex-husband still lives with her), even though she’s basically slowly killing my in-laws by draining all their time, energy, money, and who’s now getting a Habitat for Humanity House (I’m not even going to get into my rage on that one). Meanwhile, I come from the background of having actual divorced parents (my dad had his own apartment after my parents split, because that’s what normal divorced people do), I grew up eating peanut butter and hot dogs (not that there’s anything wrong with either) because that’s all we could afford, and at 16, found myself in the awkward position of being the only one in my immediate family with employment because my folks had been laid off within 6 months of each other. Don’t I deserve a medal?! At the very least, can I have a slice of ham?
Rachel, if I could, I’d give you all the ham.
Rachel, if i could, I’d give you the whole pig!
what is it with complete idiots comparing themselves to shakespeare? congrats, sweetney. you are the new sarah palin.
Uh yeah. She also seems to think the reason blogs suck now is the fault of “hate sites”. You know, not because most of these assholes haven’t been part of the real world for 10 years and are running out of shit to dramatize for the internet. Nope, it’s because GOMI is scaring them from posting. Wtfever bitch.
“I haven’t been the target of hate blogs for a while, but my understanding is that the traffic from them is phenomenal now, and only continuing to grow. Meaning there are a lot of people out there – probably some of you reading this very post right now – who EAT. THAT. HATE. SHIT. UP. And if you do? If you go to those blogs? Then you are a part of the problem. You are helping, with each and every click, to kill blogging as we all know and love it (or knew and loved it, as the case is rapidly appearing to be). And so you have no right to complain about how bloggers are so lame and stiff and fake now, or about how so few bloggers seem open and brave and truly share themselves these days. Because YOU are making them that way. TRUTH.”
Being brave and sharing about yourself is not necessarily mutually exclusive with being lame and stiff and fake. If she means that people are now less inclined to give a dramatic play-by-play of the torturous experience of waiting in line at the grocery store, that’s probably a good thing.
Yeah and then you keep reading and it culminates in her making it sound like she is the only authentic blogger left, and will plow on being oh so plucky and putting it all out there, because this drama stallion can’t be tamed, yadda yadda haters won’t get ME down yadda yadda zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Drama stallion. Hugs & ham for that one.
“You are part of the problem, you are making it that way, TRUTH!,” etc. etc. …the “problem” is all in your mind, Sweetney. There is no problem. If you really thought you were I AM A ROCK STAR STRONG BRAVE AND TRUE, you really wouldn’t care, you wouldn’t be defensive, you wouldn’t address an issue that no one is bringing up, and you would just continue with your badass self. (Note to the Sweetney & Cecily types…if you call yourself badass and such out loud, you’re not.) But you are so insecure that you feel the need to constantly defend your choices & constantly say how awesome you are & how awesome your latest boyfriend is and blah blah blah. A truly honest writer would drop the pose, dear Tracey.
This week, I gave up my blog after seven years (not a true confessions blog, a blog about vintage stuff) because I could no longer justify the time and effort involved in keeping it up well while I am searching for gainful employment. One pays the bills, the other doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. And save for the note I left to my readers about how I was discontinuing the blog, this is the first mention I have made of it online. It’s not Shakespeare. No “haters” involved. No drama and nobody leaving their wife and kids for me. No fraudulent marriages for health insurance. I simply can’t devote the time to blogging any longer because I have bills to pay. That’s the way it’s done in the real, non-Mommyblogger world.
And the clicks. Clickety Click Click. When Violent Acres put up That Picture and the world ended, Sweetney and Amalah’s blogs were like the 3rd and 4th place on the entire internet for a few weeks. The ENTIRE INTERNET. Millions and millions of blogs and readers. I bet they made thousands off of that.
I have no idea wtf you are talking about with any of this comment. But ok.
Also? Her commenters are nuts! One of them is saying, quite seriously, that bloggers are saving lives, and it’s hard to excuse them when they don’t use their God-given, blogging talents, because they are DENYING A GIFT TO THE WORLD.
“But I hate to see us let it desaturate who we are, and keep us from reaching out to others who are struggling. When someone is honest in the face of criticism, honest for YOU, so that YOU, wherever you are, can recognize yourself in them and be comforted, it’s a gift. It comes at a cost, yes. But I’m sorry. I’m always going to want talented people to be willing to pay it. That’s how valuable the truth is for me. It can, quite literally, save lives.
When someone is born articulate, born with the ability to bridge gaps with words, born with the power to offer kindness and healing to some reader out there somewhere, I will always struggle to forgive them for using it for something else. Even though I know I should, and even though I know it’s absolutely none of my business.”
WHAT???
I do kind of feel that way….about, oh, I dunno, maybe brilliant doctors and scientists who work on helping sick people and researching new treatments to save people’s lives. I’m thankful they choose to use their big brains for good.
I guess blogging is kind of like that.
Oh.my.gawd. Seriously, is the fucking Star Spangled Banner playing behind this self-congratulating rambling of idiocy?
Who is struggling and in need of saving that is being helped by her uber talented ohsovaluable blog (which I have never ever come across FYI)?
Someone named Holly in the midwest started a blog called Violent Acres. It took off like a rocket because the first few posts were really funny takeoffs of the then most popular bloggers, Dooce, etc.
A few weeks later she put up a picture of Sweetney’s kid and called her retarded.
Amalah went insane and wrote a post about it implying horrible things had happened and people were going crazy trying to find out WHAT had happened so the whole damn internet was clicking like mad trying to find out why Amalah was so angry.
I still remember the name of the post:
Gonna make a mistake. Gonna do it on purpose.
(The mistake being that you are supposed to ignore trolls).
But she never came right out and said what horrible terrible thing had happened and then after much righteous wrath had to admit in the comments that it was just a post calling Sweetney’s child a bad word.
Then she wrote “You (the mean mean mean internet) don’t deserve any more pictures of MY BABY!” And that lasted 48 hours before she changed her mind.
I don’t even know if Violent Acres is still on the internet, but her website was http://www.violentacres.com and it was one of the first posts.
Then she insulted Tucker Max and wrote a really funny take off of him (wow that was a long time ago, back when Tucker Max was actually relevant to anything) and Tucker got one of his minions to figure out who she was and it was some woman in the Midwest who ran a dog training business and lived in a 900 sq. foot house.
That’s all I remember…About a year later VA boasted that she had sold her site for $40,000 and stopped writing posts and the whole thing just died a quiet death.
VA did not allow comments so somebody even started a blog where you could comment on her posts and that was a big success for awhile.
I didn’t say I was interested in the back story. But thanks. Sounds like a bunch of ignorant mommy blogger drama.
Is she really so dumb that she doesn’t understand that being the subject of “hate” blogs gets her page views? I mean, if this is her JOB, maybe she should figure out that getting more eyes on her blog isn’t going to kill it. It’s actually kind of the goal.
I’ve never heard of her until today, and now, not only am I hating her, I am EATING.ALL.THIS.HATE.SHIT.UP. And, i am also rolling around in it, and rubbing it all over myself, and smearing it all over the walls.
Whatever. Haters are not her problem. Her shitty, amateurish writing style is her problem.
“You are helping, with each and every click, to kill blogging as we all know and love it.”
No.
We are helping to kill blogging as we know and deeply, profoundly and with excellent reason, hate it.
I really don’t get it. From where I’m from, having haters is actually seen as a good thing – means you got their attention at least. And so, attention whores and so-called “haters” can live in a happy, interlaced tensioned codependence without anyone taking anything to heart.
I blame the lack of soccer for these people being like they are, or something equally superficial like that. Or bored.
Yeah, that’s the thinking that allows these morons to tell each other “once you have haters you’ve MADE IT!” Having “haters” doesn’t mean anything other than some people don’t like you. Since these narcissists can’t deal with that reality, they have to make it into a positive thing – we are either jealous of their awesomeness, or they are now officially famous.
The truth is none of these people are going to change their ridiculous ways for being called on them and we’re definitely not going to stop laughing at those ridiculous ways. Better to accept that than to claim OMG BLOGGING IS DEAD because someone calls you out on it.
These women must really be terribly bored.
1) If I type “TRUTH” after any statement I make does that prove it’s true?
*jotting down in Rules of Internets notebook for future reference*
2) How do so many people not realize criticism either improves- or weeds out- shitty blogs, TV shows, businesses, professionals, etc.? If a restaurant’s food is so bad it habitually makes people sick and they complain, it can either fix the problem or GTFO. If a show is panned by critics, it has to improve or it’s cancelled. This isn’t “death by haters”, it’s natural fucking selection. Watch the nature channel if you think criticism is sooooo awful. The slowest gazelle gets eaten, and the pack as a whole is stronger afterwards. If you blog about boring shit, you are a slow gazelle.
Is that gazelle ham flavored?
If gazelle tastes anything like antelope, I can tell you they are somewhat hammy.
if she’s the example of “blogging as we know it”, I am more than happy to be part of the funeral party.
She’s an example of a woman who thinks blogging is some one-dimensional community of supportive fangirls. I’m pretty sure most of us stopped subscribing to any such delusional thoughts after being online for more than a few weeks of our lives. But carry on, blog martyrs. Maybe I’m just out of touch down here in my basement with my cats and ham.
Just went down a Violent Acres k-hole. Was it ever confirmed that VA was indeed Hollie?
Kinda fascinating..
Yeah. Because she was so totally supportive in this sorry excuse for an article:
http://blogs.babble.com/babble-voices/sweetney-spice/2012/02/02/gwyneth-paltrow-to-women-put-your-husband-first-and-be-a-wife/
BUT BUT! Accurately calling out celebrities who are in need of spanx is EMPOWERING. Celebrities are fair game because THEY PUT THEMSELF IN THE PUBLIC EYE……. Mommybloggers don’t do that! #SISTERHOOD!
WHO IS YOUR EDITOR BITCH?
“Increasingly insufferable hyper-privelged know-it-all Gwyneth Paltrow is at it again.”
Messi school of proofreading and editing in full effect, yo.
Increasingly insufferable hyper-privileged know-it-all Gwyneth Paltrow Tracey Gaughran-Perez is at it again.
There! All better!
I think there’s not enough hate on the Internet as it is.
“You wonder why people are more reserved on their blogs than they were 2, 3, 4 years ago? Look at your community and see what its become.”
No…people are way more guarded now because it’s been drilled into our head that everything you put online is permanent, and yeah, maybe you don’t want your boss to know you plan on eating your placenta.
Oh wait…
Hate sites? Is there another one?
(Seriously asking)
I’ve seen plenty of sites that post snark, but most of them only focus on one specific blogger – I know there is a PW snark site, and I think a Gluten Free Girl snark site exists. Since these bloggers mostly only care what is being said about THEM and as far as I know she’s never been mentioned on GOMI before today, I’m going to guess she must have had her own site snarking on her at some point.
I think she was featured pretty frequently on the old trainwrecks.net site.
Trainwrecks never touched her. (They did go after her partner in crime Amalah, but mainly because her husband is a foodie who loves to eat dungenous (sic) crab).
Sweetney considers ABDPBT.com a “hate” site because it had the gall to ask the MamaPop writers if they were paid, and if so, how much. And tried to crash Sweetney’s BlogHer party. And then called her cake racist.
I would imagine she hates abdpbt a little because of this: http://abdpbt.com/my-comment-to-sweetney-that-she-wont-publish/
I’ve heard about this one focused on somebody named Juliette Aronson.
No idea who she is.
There’s Free Jinger if you want to snark on fundy bloggers. But be forewarned, a lot of the commenters over there are poorly-educated ex-fundies themselves, so they lack critical thinking skills and are only able to see issues in black and white.
Also, the FJ people sometimes get a little creepy, like when they searched out a blogger’s address and began sending her items they felt she needed. Well-intentioned? Probably. Freakin’ scary and obsessive? Absolutely.
Anna is THAT BITCH. Love her.
This was me wading through her sea of hyperbole
Win!!
This was me:
I have always hated her. She is so awful. I wish I had something snerk worthy to say, but I am overcome by HATE for HER.
Thank you for sharing this inspiring tale of overcoming the odds.
Reader’s Digest will shit out a condensed version Wile-U-Wate.
This is a great quote:
“Slowly, your relationship with the internet gets fucked up, and you find yourself sitting with your cursor poised over the “Publish” button for a full hour before summoning the courage to click, fearing the descent of the vultures you’re sure are circling just outside your range of vision.”
So brave.
Thanks, the header is great!
I especially appreciate it, knowing that:
Oops, that’s supposed to be in response to the comment about the new header.
So fat, so slow.
OMG I just saw the new header. ROFLMAO. Thank you.
:D You’re welcome!
I really wish these Sparklecorns were as anatomically correct as they are racially problematic. *waiting with baited breath*