This past Saturday, I drove through tropical storm Hanna to get to George Mason University where I was speaking on a panel about web 2.0 and writing.

Once I arrived, I had to unclench my knuckles. But the amazing thing? As I drove along the Capitol Beltway, I felt like all of us crazy enough to be out such weather were working together not to kill one another with our cars. It’s not normally that way. Normally, Washingtonians are angry, speeding, seething, and huffing at people who dare to slow down before making a right turn. When it comes to driving, Washingtonians have murder in their hearts. This was not the case during the tropical storm. People drove about 40 or 50 mph. That in itself is a miracle in these here parts.

One guy drove his car into the cement wall and someone stopped to help. Another miracle.

When I arrived on campus, I drove my car through a POND. The pond had risen up over a small hill and then cascaded down another little hill and was filling the street with unattractive brown water as I drove through it.

An angel — aka kind student — took the time to walk me all the way to the Research Building where I was to speak. At one point we walked through water up to our ankles. He looked at my shoes and said, ‘I guess it’s the end for your shoes, huh?” And I tried not to think about how much I paid for them. I only wore them in some semblance of attempting to look professional. This particular group of folks would not have cared if I’d worn Keens or hip-high fishing boots. Next time, I’ll bring my fishing pole.

The presentation included co-panelists Laurie of Lauriewrites, Jeff Taylor of Millennial Marketer, and Michael Yessis of World Hum.

Mr. Yessis spoke about how he started a group travel blog. Eventually, the blog was sold and now he and his co-bloggers get to write about travel for a living, which is a dream come true for them.

Mr. Taylor discussed how he got into the web world. He asked for AOL unlimited service when he was seven years old and has loved the web ever since. He started a blog to help him land a job and to brand himself. I thought, “a recent college grad talking about branding himself?” I then had hope for our nation.

Ms. Laurie (oops, I could not find her last name on her website) gets paid to blog (to ghost blog, I believe) and has a teaching and journalism background. She helped to fill in the holes and was 100% inspiring when she talked about how she came to blogging and how she came to getting paid for blogging.

I did what I could to explain how to start a blog. When I did a panel like this before, people were really hungry for the techie aspect of it. I fielded questions about how to get a domain name versus web hosting and many questions about the difference between the two. I was sympathetic to their plight. I remember how hard it was to understand all of these techie details when I was first putting blogs together.

Kristen King of American Independent Writers was the mastermind behind the conference. My only regret was that I was unable to attend the entire event.