Okay, I’m giving this a shot because, well, why not? Technorati is offering an all-expenses-paid trip to the TechnoratiBlogHer conference:
The selected author will receive a flight to the Bay Area, two nights at the Westin Santa Clara hotel complete with in-room Internet access, and registration for the BlogHer conference.Technorati will pay for your flight from a major air hub in the continental United States (Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle).
Sounds good. What do I have to do?
How has blogging changed your life? Did it lead to a new job, new friends, a new life? How would a trip to Silicon Valley to meet other female bloggers help you accomplish your goals? We want to hear your story!
“Female bloggers”? There are female bloggers? (I kid, I kid.)
Blogging has changed my life in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin. (There’s the weight gain and the chronic underemployment, but that probably isn’t what you mean.)
In a very practical sense, each blog builds a community, and the members share resources with the other members. My readers have helped me over many a rough spot (including covering my bills through a bout with pneumonia and donating money for a new car when my old one died), but it’s really the emotional connection that keeps me doing this crazy thing.
I post some political monkey business that makes my eyeballs spin, wondering if I’m the only person who thinks the world is going nuts, and a few minutes later, ten different people have assured me I’m not. And each of them have offered their own unique take, grounded in their life experiences.
There must be something about my voice people like, because this year they named me “Most Deserving of Wider Recognition” at the fabulous Koufax awards.
Blogging is helping me come to terms with the idea I might not be cut out for the corporate world into which I keep trying to shoehorn my soul.
This is a toughie. I’m a working class kid, born and bred. “You don’t ever walk away from a job unless you have another one.” “You never turn a job down if you need one.” “Nothing’s more important than a regular paycheck.”
And that old favorite, “Just who do you think you are? What makes you think you’re so special?”
And yet. And yet… Can I live with a job that demands I stop blogging, or seriously curb my opinions? I. Don’t. Know. I just don’t. As an editorial writer, I sometimes had to write opinions with which I disagreed with my heart and soul. But this feels different.
Blogging hasn’t led to a job – yet. But I have hopes.
Blogging has re-opened the same world I knew as a journalist – except this lifetime around, I get to take sides. I get to meet and speak (and argue) with bloggers of all stripes. I’m addicted to having such easy access to expertise.
Because female political bloggers aren’t clustered in my immediate geographic area, I haven’t met as many of them face-to-face as I’d like. (Plus, I’m poor; I don’t travel much. See “chronically underemployed.”)
Going to this conference would add that much more depth to the bench of blogging resources on which I so often draw.
Plus, we can do each others’ makeup and shit. So there’s that, too.
