Minnesota Bloggers Conference

I'm not really a new blogger.  I hovered on the outskirts of the blogging world for years before jumping in with both feet last January.  I do it for fun, to show off pictures, and to create a record of my kids' struggles and triumphs for all our family and friends and ourselves -- and if I get to educate and comfort and befriend a few Fragile X families along the way, well that's just frosting.  I've wanted to write for years and have found that blogging is a great way to get instant gratification from what is mostly a solitary process.

I've learned something important from this process.  I try to stay efficacious and upbeat about what can be a daunting, depressing subject.  And lo and behold, it is possible -- to tell the absolute truth, and still be encouraging and optimistic.  Not that there aren't down days.  They are inevitable.  But I try to bounce right back up, because trips to negative town help no one.

So I admit I didn't even know there was a Minnesota Blogger's Conference until a few days ago.  I was very excited to sign up, until I saw that it was sold out.  I joined the 100+ long waiting list and figured, that's it.

Then I got this email, saying that TopRank Online Marketing was giving away one pass to the conference to one lucky blogger on the list.  It's funny, a few days ago I didn't even know about the event and now here I sit, trying to win a free ticket.

I don't know that I deserve it any more than any of the others on the waiting list.  I don't know them and can't know what they might possibly benefit from the conference.  I can only say what I'd hope to gather from it.

I worry sometimes about letting too much personal information out there.  It's a fine line that rests between good material, and TMI.  I do know enough not to write too much about other people's business.  Fragile X Syndrome affects several branches of a family tree, but I don't talk about anyone else's troubles but my own.  I avoid bad-mouthing any of our teachers or therapists.  Yet I want to remain honest and forthcoming with the truth.  I could use some advice on walking that line.

And I admit a certain embarrassing but existing fascination about the whole thing.  I had no idea the blogging world was so enormous.  I'm curious to see it for my own eyes.  So if the TopRank Online Marketing staff sees fit to award me with the ticket, I'll go, I'll learn, I'll meet, I'll photograph, and I'll have a great time.  And I'll come home and blog about the whole thing.