Writer’s League of Texas Conference

If we’re friends and we spoke over the weekend, you’re probably really glad this Writer’s League of Texas conference is over. All last week I was a mess trying to figure out what I’d present for my panel, and eventually we decided that since we were trying to introduce blogging to more “traditional” writers, my experience as a contributing editor at Blogher would be a nice approach. I ended up discussing the benefits of networking on the web, and how collectives like Blogher can not only help a blogger find content that they’re interested in, but help them to expose their content to a receptive audience, as well.

I was super nervous the night before, and got more nervous as I heard what my co-panelists were doing. Craig (a master storyteller) had a great angle (and analogy) that he was using to explain his relationship with blogging, Allen and Matt (co-editors of Austinist) were discussing the nature of blogging in general (what it is, why it’s neat) and the history of blogging, and David Nunez (a Pluck dude and general badass) was going to discuss some more technical aspects of blogging (the concept of Google-ranking, RSS, etc.) and had an amazing Power Point presentation ready to go, since he’s not a panel noob like I am.

So, on Saturday night I had a lot of text, no slides, and was thinking I’d just draw some dots pointing to each other in MSPaint and wing it. By Saturday morning, I was in full freak-out mode. I was incredibly nervous and unsure how it was going to go – I had some bullet points that Allen graciously turned into a slide for me, and I was sweating like a pig through most of the pre-panel set-up. However, once Allen and Matt had gone through their presentations and it was time for me, I was feeling pretty confident and I ended up just speaking very conversationally with the audience. I hit my points, I answered some questions, and I (hopefully) presented them with some useful information.

Everyone’s presentations went wonderfully, and I actually learned a bit from David’s. Great stuff, great experience. I met some really interesting people after the panel was over and I look forward to hearing from everyone who took the time to approach me and ask for help or consults. Please do get in touch!

And I’m sorry that I’m so disorganized that I didn’t bring my business cards. If I met you at the conference and wrote my contact information on a matchbook, please know that I’m not always that unprofessional – I was just honestly shocked that anyone would be approaching me afterwards. But of course I was flattered that they did. Wonderful people, all of them, genuinely interested in the subject matter and incredibly nice.

Texans are so badass.