My childhood, and teenage years to age 20, were spent in what would be regarded today as a dysfunctional family; my surviving brother, and my mother, were great friends, and my Dad and I were great friends. There was never any real closeness with my mother, something I regretted always.

The ability to write so easily came from my mother, who always wrote letters that were like mini novels. She was artistic and liked to paint in oils and could draw pictures of people and landscapes with ease. I was never artistic and drawing and painting were past-times I chose to steer clear of.

Once school was over, Certificate safely in hand, I opted to go to Secretarial College full-time for another year because it was all I wanted to do. Once the year of extra schooling was over, I realised my one real chance of getting a job was to join the Public Service, so I sat for the examination in Sydney, passed it and the medical examination, and commenced work as a junior stenographer in the NSW Police Department at age 16. 

Resignation from the Public Service at 18 seemed a better alternative than remaining a junior for another three years. Most of my friends outside the Public Service earned more money with less skills. A position closer to home was advertised in the local paper and after applying for the position and attending an interview, I became secretary to a marketing manager in a private company. 

My father decided to register a company for his business with my name on the documents as Company Secretary, so I resigned from my secretarial job and went to work with my father. At twenty I was married and gave up work to raise a family. Two of my children became involved in swimming and the cost of coaching, pool entry fees, clothing etc, and travelling to various swim meets stretched the family budget. I managed to secure three part-time jobs, during school hours, to pay for those costs.

Eventually I felt the need to find a life for myself and to use the skills I knew were still there. After many disappointing attempts at securing permanent office work, the day arrived when success knocked at my door and I returned to the workforce as a secretary in the centre management office of a large shopping centre management company. By this time my 3 children were in high school. After 12.5 years with that company, 6.5 of them travelling to/from the CBD daily, I was finding the travelling draining, and decided there had to be more to life than spending 3 hours a day in traffic to earn a living.

After resigning and spending a month at home, I became a temporary office worker until securing a full time position some 2.5 years later, once more with the Public Service.

The adventure into the world of writing came late in life due mainly to the fact that I could never see myself writing fiction, and my life didn’t seem to be interesting enough to write about, except family history notes for my children. I always read books, even as a child, and could never have enough of them to satisfy my need to read and learn. I read books well above my age group and the harder the text the better.

The desire to write a book one day was hidden in the recesses of my mind; an unattainable desire, or so I thought. One way to satisfy the desire to write was to try and put together the pieces of my life from my earliest childhood memories for my children, who were by then, adults. It was 1997. 

The story I started to write in 1997 for my family is far from complete; it became lost amongst all the other things that came into my life.Without even looking for them, I found online chat rooms; wandered in for a look and stayed. The addiction set in very quickly; I had found somewhere to spend the alone times of a night where I could have fun, meet people anonymously, and learn about computers.

Although being computer literate with word processing I was still ‘green’ about the other aspects of a computer. Surfing the net was a rarity and something I found slow and boring. Finding chat saved me from having to surf in order to find something interesting to spend my time doing. Chat became a crutch, and I grooved right into this new social medium I had stumbled upon.

Romantic relationships with men had held no interest for me during eleven years of separation/divorce, from 1988 to 1999. And yet here I was, online in a chat room, enjoying the flirting, and participating in it. Over a three year period from September 1999 to January 2003 I became involved with a number of men I met online first, either in the chat rooms or via online dating services.

That involvement in chat brought me to where I am today. An Australian author with my first book published in the USA in May 2005. Because of the way the manuscript is written, the book has been classified fiction/romance based on my real life, those three years of chat.

In the months I spent working with my editor in the USA, and the ensuing months getting the manuscript printed, I ventured into other areas of writing. A number of short stories came as the result of stories told to me by friends that sent my mind into overdrive – yes, I did attempt fiction and am enjoying the journey immensely.

I applied for and was accepted as an expert on ‘chat online’ with www.AllExperts.com, an accomplishment I am proud of. Media exposure so far include an article in the St Marys/Mt Druitt Standard local newspaper, an interview on Channel 31 for Joy’s World, inclusion in The Sydney Morning Herald Icon article titled 'The Net Effect', an appearance on Today Tonight, a live to air interview with Julie McCrossin on ABC National Radio, a feature in The Courier Mail Brisbane newspaper and features in a Victorian regional newspaper, the Blacktown Sun newspaper and the NSW Department of Commerce Communique in newspaper format and on the intranet.

I am contacted from time to time by journalists for information on online dating and chat rooms and also have been contacted by parents who, after reading my book or an article about the book, have felt the need to touch base to discuss their real concerns for their children and their exposure to the Internet and the effects that exposure is having on the children and the families.

My aim is to educate wherever possible and my passion is the possible unseen danger for everyone who enters the world of the internet, most especially the children.

Be aware, be wary, and beware, are my words of wisdom for anyone who cares to listen or read. I will always be willing to speak to anyone by any medium about the internet, the dangers, and the wonder of it all in the right context, because those of us who do have wisdom from exposure, should make it our business to share this wisdom and save others from falling into the pits that we may have fallen into.

Writing gives me the chance to be heard, even by just a few. Those few can spread the word and will be believed by their friends and relatives much more easily than I will be. Word of mouth is the greatest form of communication and advertising as it gives people a sense of safety. I rely on that to ensure the little I can do matters.

I am back in control of my manuscript 'Secrets, Lies & Chat' after having signed a settlement agreement with the publisher and regaining full rights.  I have rewritten the manuscript and returned the story to the way I wanted it, not how it ended up.  It wasn't a labour of love really as the last thing I ever wanted was to work on the story again once it was published.  However it is now for sale on my website as an eBook for a very tiny $4.95 payable through PayPal and perhaps one day people may see a reason to buy the eBook and read my story.   

The opinions expressed to me by some who have read the book (in its published format) differ vastly.  That, to me, is a satisfactory result as it is a story that will affect different people in different ways.  It was never written to be a romance story or even a good-feel story.  It's reality and reality does bite! 

The personal attacks on me that have come from some quarters roll off me like water off my pup's back.  People who can only try to control by personal attack are the ones with problems, not me.  Amazing how jealousy shows itself.  I did something that I dreamed of doing with little knowledge of how to do it.  Perhaps if they tried to do similar they would spend less time throwing dung at others who manage to realise a dream through sheer determination and dedication.

What's around the next corner?  Who knows and really, does it matter that much?  The hard yard is over, what's left of life should be an easy paced stroll with plenty of laughs and the easing of the wrinkles of time.

If you are brave, visit my website and buy the book, either a soft cover version that will be autographed and posted, or the cheaper revised version eBook . The downloads are in Word or a pdf file and can be downloaded as a zip file if preferred.  Payment is by credit card via Paypal.

True life is stranger than fiction and sometimes harder to believe.  My story is all of that.

Vena McGrath - 4 March 2007