I Am A Blogger

I am a Blogger.

There was a time when I did not know what the word meant. It conjured up a picture of some pudgy little creature that fed on swamp growth.  Little did I know Blog is a blend of two words, web and log.

My friend Laura Dawson, a pioneer agent in social networking and digital media was the first person I knew that blogged. I have to admit I did not pay much attention then. I was still immersed in the world of Cable Television. One day we were new media and the next the Internet arrived and we became old media. And like most people who sit on the other side of the table from agents of change, I was skeptical. Who was going to read a Blog? How would people find these Blogs? How could you make money from Blogging?  It never crossed my mind at the time that I would one day have a Blog of my own.

But I do.
I am a Blogger.

I launched my blog on November 18, 2008. Most blogs don’t last three months.  I write a Blog but I also read them. I aspire to have people feel about my Blog the way I do about Seth Godin’s. I never want to miss one and he always makes me think.

I have a following that is growing steadily. I suppose I could up the ante on that by writing a highly controversial or very angry rant that has no fact behind it or  posting outlandish pictures of myself in compromising situations but that is not what my blog is about. It is about what I think and what I see in this third chapter of my life, the post corporate section. It is about reinvention, rejuvenation and inspiration. And it is about good writing.

I am a Blogger and this week I am attending my first BlogHer Conference.

BlogHer is the largest community of women bloggers as well as a media company. They have been around since 2005. This conference is a hot ticket. In fact, there is no doubt that if I wanted to I could sell mine at a much higher price than what I paid for it. But I am not selling.

I am Blogger. And I am going to my first BlogHer Conference.

I am not sure what to expect, what I will learn, and what I will be surprised I know already.
I am sure there will much discussion as to how to make money from Blogging. And that is a good thing, although not the intention I had when I started this.  I launched my Blog to establish my writing platform. It was the first real grounding I had just a few months out of a world I had spent twenty five years in. I saw it as my daily writing practice, a place to grow my readership before my novels were published. A place where a potential editor might get a taste of my voice. A place where I could go each day and connect with the world.

I am a Blogger and I am going to a conference of BlogHers.