OK, so a year and a bit ago I wrote some stuff and showed it to a friend. Said friend wanted to share it with a writing net.buddy on another continent, so i figured out how to make myself a free website & posted it. Needed a name for the author, and the site owner, so i took the one from the main character of the piece. Meet Ana.

Later, when I started joining online communities, and needed a nick, hey, I already had a pseudonym, which is almost the same, thing, isn't it? So I used "ana". Much fun ensued, and i found an outlet for much angst, just by posting it on the web.

But, hey, eventually people begin to figure things out. No mind, really, except that it points out that these various kinds of identites really are different things.

Characters of course are fictional critters, who have at least some differences from their authors. Pseudonyms need not have any reality to them at all, except one's ability to remember which name to use when.

But web personae can be as real or as pseudonymical (is that a word?) as you like. They can be anything from a role-playing-game character, to a byline (not unlike a pseudonym), to the real you.

Anyway, comments are welcome.