Decisions, Decisions

I've been mulling over whether I want to attend JournalCon 2001 or not. It all depends upon a lot of issues.

Back in September, when I first spilled the Beans (sorry, it was too good to pass up), I read in Squishy about the first annual gathering for online journallers being held in Pittsburgh. Pamie was a scheduled speaker, as well as Beth from Bad Hair Days, and I wished I had found out about the convention earlier. Granted, I had less than a month's entries under my belt. The idea of meeting a roomful of people that had years of archives on their websites was downright intimidating.

The idea appealed to me, though. The idea of meeting other people who shared my interest for rambling on and on and posting it on the internet for anyone and everyone to see; perhaps they could give me pointers on how to improve my techniques. At the very least I'd walk away with a list of new websites to check out, and quite possibly I could forge a few friendships out of a weekend trip. But since it was too late for me to register and I felt too inexperienced to participate, I dismissed the idea until the following year.

Well, the dates and locations have been announced (Chicago, October 12-14). Chicago is well within driving distance for me; I could request a day or two off in October to allow for travel time. But now I find myself not sure if I want to participate for a whole new set of reasons....

Back in September, I had no idea if anyone was reading my site outside of family and friends. I hadn't "met" anyone via the internet, and I was interested in getting my name out there. Yes, I was writing my posts mostly for myself (still am), but I wanted readers. I wanted an audience. I wanted sites like Diarist.net to laud me with awards. I wanted to open my email inbox every day to find it overflowing with fan mail. I was gonna be a star, just by voicing my opinions to the virtual world!

No, I don't know what they slipped in my drink back then. Must've been good stuff, huh?

At this point, that's not so important. I know I have a few readers who have been kind enough to offer me feedback, and link to my site. I've listed with a few directories, and at this point I can't even remember the names or links. This little page is never going to make me a millionaire or put me on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Big deal. What I write makes me happy, and if it entertains someone else in the process, then so be it. As Crew put it the other day, "I guess I'll always be a member of the Internet trailer park set."

So for one, my priorities have changed. But my perspectives have changed as well about other online journalists/bloggers/whatever you want to call them.

First off, there's the whole label thing. Since I publish through Blogger, it seems easy to classify what I write as a blog. However, average Joe NetSurfer may not be familiar with the term, and by the technical definition, this is not a weblog. I don't link all that much unless it's a subject I'm babbling about. Yes, I realize that the technical definition has pretty much been thrown out the window at this point and blogs no longer refer to merely a list of "places I've been on the net and cool/weird sites I've seen." But some people online still are purists, and tend to look upon weblogs as anathema. Some directories won't accept "hive sites" like mine at Blogspot. Frankly, bloggers are the red-headed stepchildren of the internet.

Well, that bothers me. I think about what I write on this page. I work pretty damn hard on it (when I'm actually posting to it). I have plans for the future; I want to eventually get a site that supports graphics and a search engine and merchandise and all the bells and whistles. But at this point, I'm poor. I'm still a programming moron. And posting here is free and easy, two of my current favorite words. So while I generally refer to what I do as a website or online journal to avoid confused looks from an uninformed companion, the truth of the matter is I'll still affiliated with two websites that have the word "blog" in them. And to some people, that adds up to "a big page full of links and not much else." I saw posts to bulletin boards about whether webloggers would be welcomed at JournalCon that could easily be described as discriminating.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is actually fear. I don't know any of the journalling community per se. Some cities seem to have an interactive group of online journalists; Cincinnati isn't one of them, so there really isn't anyone I can network with over a Mocha Latte at Buzz Coffee Shop and CD-O-Rama. I only read a few other journals on a regular basis, and of the ones I read, I've been reluctant to correspond with most of them. It's like being at a high school dance; I'm standing over in the wallflower corner, wishing I had the courage to go talk to the really popular kids, afraid that they'd ignore me if I even thought to raise my voice. And if I can't start a conversation online with a fellow journaller, then what makes me think I'll be able to do it in a noisy hotel conference area?

So therein lies the dilemma. I could go and be ostracized for not being cool enough to program with the big dogs and spend the entire time in my hotel room chain smoking and watching HBO, or I could go and have a great time and meet lots of new people and learn something. Or I could just sit at home and never know.

What to do, what to do.

Of course, I am worrying about this a bit early. It's only March. The date was just finalized, and the hotel location hasn't even been decided. I suppose I have plenty of time to decide if I'm going to go to the Prom.