Blogging, The Conference or High School Redux

I’ve hit that point in a blogging conference attendee’s trajectory where you no longer care what the popular girls think. It’s like I’m entering grade 12 all over again and I know I’m only there for a couple specific purposes. I need to pass finite math to get into U of T, get a role in the school play and see how long I can get away with wearing knee-high red army boots with my school-girl kilt. Uh, wait. That’s not right.

But it kind of is. I attended an all-girl’s Catholic school and it was one bitter cat fight to the end — if you let it be. Grades nine and ten were wrought with all kinds of petty jealousies and flat-out meanness. I wasn’t “bullied,” no, I was mostly just ignored, ostracized and sometimes laughed at. Whatever. I found some fellow freaks and geeks and hung low.  By grade 11 I had my own teen angst rebellion thing happening outside of school and was so beyond engaging in any of the social leveraging and power plays happening in the halls.

But grade 12 was the best. I knew who I was and who I wasn’t. I knew who was worth hanging out with and forgot about everyone else. I passed finite. I made the school play. I wore those boots for the entire day and not one teacher said peep to me. It was a good year.

So even though this is only my third blogging conference (fourth if you count the Blissdom Canada where I only attended the parties), I feel like I’m starting to know how these things play out. There will be some squealing and gushing. There will be a good amount of jockeying. There will be even more ass kissing. And there will be lots and lots of sales pitches masquerading as “opportunities” to build “relationships.” Please.

But there will also be some good friends. There will even be a few good (gasp) writers! There will be people I admire and people I like and a couple people I can learn from. Those connections are worth maintaining. I know there are golden conversations waiting to happen and ghosts of ideas that can spring to life in settings like these. I need to say to hello to a couple people, I need to be inspired and I need to make some real life, honest-to-goodness business contacts. That is all.

So tomorrow I go to Blissdom Canada and we’ll see what it’s all about. I’ll be smoking cigarettes with the rejects in the lane way drinking coffee with some writers. If you want to come over and say hello, I’d love to meet you. If you want to hire me to write stories for money, I’d really love to meet you.

If you want me to share the exciting news about your product in exchange for crap I don’t need, let’s not waste each other’s time.

Squee.