I have been hemming and hawing to Wes and to this blog and to twitter and to my poor, patient assistant at work (wait, have I ever told you about my assistant? whom I adore and also who makes me seethe with envy? she is a pretty successful artist already, at the age of about 9 years old or so and her parents know absolutely everyone including the creator of Elmo and she has a published novel that she wrote and published simply for the purpose of trying to get it purchased and then deaccessioned by the NYPL as an art piece.... she is fascinating and brilliant and excellent with computers and more than I could ever ask for in an assistant and if I make it through another year before she is pilfered for some higher calling, it will be a fricking miracle... wait. what was I saying?)....
Anyway, I was nervous about this BlogHer conference call. And it was last Wednesday and it was FINE. Totally fine. Much of it was information about what to expect and how it will go. And Megan, our moderator, is so confident and awesome that I came through feeling pretty confident, too.
The crazy part was that it was so meta for me. We talked about how important it was that we convey a message about BlogHer because we are the first Mommyblogging track panel. One of our jobs is to be sure that people know that the conference is what they will make of it and that they should have the confidence to talk to people and not hide (or maybe to embrace and enjoy the hiding with some other hiders, if necessary) and that bloggers, many of us, are by our nature better with writing than speaking and that can be weird but we're all just people trying to find our tribes and we shouldn't assume that just because a bunch of people are already friends and talking together that they are trying to exclude us...
Anyway, these were naturally some of MY concerns, being a BlogHer newbie. I am a panelist and feel awesome about that and I do have this HUGE dose of inner confidence (that which makes me always think I am right, for example, even when I am politely nodding and smiling about your wrongness). But I also have some of that normal blogger/writer social anxiety stuff. The Middle School stuff, I guess. The lingering issues caused by the way those bitches made me feel on the playground in 7th grade. I am mostly over them and honestly, I usually do fine in social situations. I just worry a lot beforehand. So this whole call, while I was being tasked with encouraging newbies, was actually like a big flashing message to ME, the newbie.
Because the bottom line for me has been, even as I was contacted and selected to be on a panel, that I am still feeling pretty small potatoes and tiny and so, so different from all these other Power Mom bloggers and while there is some jealousy there, there is also confusion for me. Closer inspection into all of this marketing and new media stuff has really made me think about what I want out of this and it isn't that Power direction so many are taking. I am actually curious to see how much it dominates the conference and whether it will interest or distress me. Currently, I remain open and will see how it goes. I trust this organization and know from everything that I have read about last year that people come out energized not just to market and brand themselves but also to WRITE more. And that is why I want to go. I am not sure how I feel about being a brand, though I am a realist and know that business is an important part of publishing, online or off. I will let you know after I learn more about it. But I DO know, that the idea of meeting and hanging out and learning from so many awesome writers is too big to ruin with something silly like nerves. So I am not going to whine about how nervous and small and unimportant I am anymore.
Besides, how many years have I spent shouting about how I want my story told? How many years have I been trying to write about love and my crazy family and make people see that our difference is not so different and that Love Conquers All?
I have been worrying a lot about not having an "elevator pitch" for the Blogger Speed-Dating session at the beginning, when we get to introduce ourselves to tons of other people and say what we blog about. What the hell do I blog about? It's a mommyblog. It's a queerish blog. It's an illness blog. It has been a travel blog and a home renovation blog and a librarian blog and an infertility blog and a miscarriage blog and a pregnancy blog and a rantfest. It's a "personal blog," but what a boring catchall that is.
So maybe it's a blog about love.
