CBC10 Day 2

I’m exhausted. Who knew blogging could break you down and have you begging for your bed at 8pm?

We had 4 breakout sessions -- my classes were: The Art of Story Telling, Niche Blogging, From Blogging to Writing: Is there really a difference, and How to Interact with Online Communities to Grow Your Readership.

One thing I must say – just because you are a popular blogger (although, I hadn’t heard of ANY of these bloggers, but I don’t live in Utah and I only focus on book bloggers, so that’s no big surprise) doesn’t make you a public speaker. One of the panels totally crashed and burned because of that. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It made me wish I had stuck with my original class choice. Oh well – I guess they don’t have to worry about what I think since they have HUGE followings!

The two writing sessions were the best. They both talked about finding your “voice” – and for the most part I think they were talking about bloggers who write personal narratives, unlike what I do the majority of the time, which is read and report. But even I struggle with how I want the tone or inflection of my reviews to read – do I want to be funny or serious, or how bad do I actually trash this book? Or, even a bigger problem is my lip-sync syndrome: “Oh, I really wish I sounded more like so-and-so,” and then try to fake my way through a review hoping I mimic someone. A recommendation from one of the speakers was to go back and reread a particularly popular review, or one that you felt really good about and try to figure out what made that work. The problem with reviews, though, is it the review that was popular or was it the book? But something I’m going to work on going forward.

Finally, the closing speaker was CJane. Of course EVERYONE is a follower of CJane, right? Everyone except me! I’m not too trendy when it comes to blogs – no Dooce, no Pioneer Woman, no CJane or Nie Nie . I figure, they have enough followers, why on earth do they need me too? (I’m not linking them either!)

So, my 1st CBC conference is done. Not sure I would do it again. I think next year, I’m saving my $$ for BEA!