Creative Alliance: A Comfortable Place Outside My Comfort Zone

I spent last weekend in Ojai with 34 other women at the Creative Alliance event, talking about blogging in various settings:

• an outdoor amphitheatre
• a yurt,
• a nicely appointed screened-in porch,
• under a tree complete with tree swing
• a cozy bedroom,
• a deck built on a bubbling creek, in a hot tub (there I go with the hot tub again, this time there were no lesbians in it.  I think.),
• around a breakfast table,
• in the long car rides to and from.

All of those places fit nicely inside my comfort zone, thank you very much.  I’m all about snuggling up and talking about my blog and its related activities.  That is why, when mastermind Lee Vandeman and her sidekicks chose me for the core team, I didn’t hesitate for one second.

However.  The point of participating in this unusual event was to step outside my comfort zone and really explore what the heck I’m doing here.  It may look like I have some kind of plan, but that is a facade.  So here’s where I went outside the comfort zone:

• I focused on my goals.
• I identified what needs to go (not the children as Anna Lefler boldly declared).
• I pretended to be a yoga teacher, with great success.
• I approached a blogger I’ve admired for years without sounding like a stalker.  “Circling around you” sounds better than “stalking,” right?
• I read each attendee’s blog the night before, without (much) jealousy.
• I ate tofu.
• I went to bed early and got up early so as to avoid blog conference burnout.
• I allowed myself to cry when listening to women read their incredible writing out loud.
• I helped lead an organic discussion about using our blogs for good works.
• I said “thank you” when I was complimented, instead of downplaying my good qualities.  Except when Heather and Ann declared that I look like I’m 25.  It was definitely the dark morning light.

There were wonderful meals, lots of laughs and hugging, and so many gorgeous photographs as a result.  There was a lot of talk about how bloggers can work with brands – as a case in point, two brands funded the event and attended, giving us a human face to their products that was very rare.  I particularly enjoyed meeting Moji Lynn, who did her Jersey roots justice by helping me build a fire.

Special thanks to Moji and Paper Culture for bankrolling this venture, and to Andrea Fellman who gave up her spot in the luscious platform bed for me and to Romy Schorr, who shared that bed with me, and nicknamed me Princy.  And to Tania Reuben and Lisa Rae Page Rosenberg:  thanks for the ride, ladies.