Melissa Lafsky strolls downtown Manhattan  photo by Kwaku Alston

I began blogging out of desperation. I was 26 years old, an attorney living in Manhattan and earning six figures at a law firm, with framed diplomas from Dartmouth College and U.Va. Law School crowding the floor of my closet. I had a business card, a BlackBerry, a corporate account, a secretary, all the tangible items used to measure success. I was also a nervous wreck. Night after night I would lie in bed, unable to sleep and equally unable to figure out why. Some weeks I would go three consecutive nights without closing my eyes. I had sleeping pill bottles on my bedside table and caffeine pills stashed in my desk drawer. I saw specialists, participated in overnight sleep studies, underwent brain scans—anything that modern medicine had to offer. Nothing worked.

Eventually, the tests pointed to anxiety as the source of my insomnia. Nothing was physically wrong; the only things standing between me and sleep were my own thoughts. A few therapy sessions revealed the source of my turmoil: I was terrified of failure, and viewed any mistakes in my job as symbols of inadequacy. I bottled every worry, fear and apprehension inside, and at night it bubbled to the surface. The only cure was to find an outlet for my pent-up tension. One psychologist offered a suggestion that appealed to me: I should write every night before bed.

That night I went home and spilled the contents of my head onto a computer screen. The effect was instant relief. For the first time, I felt like I could say exactly what I was thinking without being punished for it. Within days, words were pouring out. I decided to share my writing with friends and family members, many of whom I had neglected for months because of my demanding job. What better way to accomplish this objective than a blog, I thought. I had little to no experience with Web design or blogging, but I was amazed by how easy it was to create my own site. In less than 10 minutes I set up an anonymous blog titled "Opinionistas," and sent the Web address to a trusted group of friends.

Exactly one month later, Gawker.com, a hugely popular Web site covering all aspects of Manhattan media, discovered my blog. They published the Opinionistas address, and my life changed overnight. In the previous 30 days, the blog had received 500 total hits, or visits. In the 24 hours following Gawker’s link, the hit count surpassed 10,000.

The next morning, I crept into the office certain that I would be fired and escorted from the building by burly security guards. My blog posts dealt primarily with the one thing that dominated my life and fueled my nightly anxiety: my job. I wrote about the dissatisfaction of young attorneys I knew, many of whom were lured by money and the promise of success into signing their lives over to firms that cared little about their happiness or career development. I wrote about my own experiences of feeling belittled, humiliated and disrespected at each of the four law firms I had worked for since college. Miraculously, I escaped detection by my current firm, so I continued writing, praying that I wouldn’t be discovered.

Over the next few months, the blog gained popularity, and I led a dual life. By day I was a docile junior associate, shrinking every time a partner passed me in the halls. By night I was a renegade "celebrity blogger," read by thousands. The blog was profiled in the New York Times, the New York Post, the Harvard Law Record and other media. I received e-mails from readers worldwide who identified with the issues presented in my posts such as career frustration, sexual harassment, cruel bosses and office politics.

Gradually, through blogging I began to realize a larger truth: Success wasn’t the law school diploma, the BlackBerry, the high salary or the embossed business card. I was defining my own identity based on an illusion created by the people around me. I had been so busy measuring myself against everyone else that I had never bothered to consider my own passions and talents. Everything I used to determine my own self-worth was rooted in a lie.

In December of 2005, after nearly a million hits on the blog, I strode into the managing partner’s office and announced my resignation, citing a desire to "take time off" and "work on a writing project." I then signed with a literary agent and began writing my first novel, loosely based on the characters and situations described in the blog. In January, I revealed my identity to the New York Observer after rumors and speculation claiming that my site was in fact written by a man posing as a 27-year-old female attorney. I was tired of hiding behind anonymity, and I wanted to attach my name and face to the views I was expressing.

Now, three months later, my life has changed dramatically. I rise at 7:30 a.m., write a blog post, throw on a pair of jeans and get to work writing the day’s chapter. I have no idea where my next paycheck will come from, and I have no clue if I’ll be able to make it as a writer. But I do know that I’ve never been happier.