At the conference, the attendees don’t leave their tables. The presenters completely transfix them. And the presenters themselves are fascinated by their counterparts. In the hallways, at dinner, in the elevator, there is awe.

“Did you see Wycliffe? I mean. Man. That’s why we come. That’s why we play,” said co-presenter John Cocuzzi, shaking his head.

In my former life, I traveled from professional conference to workshop to expo — Sometimes I visited two or three a month in our busy season. I’ve seen professional gatherings of tax accountants, colon and rectal surgeons, reproductive health professionals, school librarians — you name it. And at these events, people attended the breakout sessions to learn more, hear more, understand more.

But I’ve never been to a “conference” like the San Diego Jazz Party, which D.J. took me to this past weekend. From a strictly event management standpoint, this event was like many others. For the three-day event each presenter led a session, and attendees paid to join into the sessions. The presenters made their livings in this industry, and the participants wanted to share their expertise.

But the main difference between this professional event and one for say the tax accountant group is one word: Passion. The presenters/musicians weren’t up there simply giving insight into their jobs. They were up there sharing their lives, their souls, their very beings.

I think artists identify themselves with their passions, and sometimes they are fortunate enough to make their livings with that passion. And for most people, our passion is outside our work zone, and we work at a job in order to have the leisure time to pursue our passions.

One would think that a person who earns his living as an accountant might feel that he “works as an accountant” instead of saying, “I am an accountant.”

One would also think that a musician (or another artist, such as a writer) would first say “I am a musician” instead of “I make my living as a musician.”

These are subtle differences, but important ones, and I think they distinguish a simple fact from a deep, interwoven passion. I’ve always been a writer. Recently, I’ve begun to make my living as a writer. And for that I’m very, very grateful.

One of my favorite clients is the Association of Energy Services Professionals. I get to interview the leaders who are doing the most to help the US conserve energy. Yesterday I talked with a woman about her work to help reduce plug loads, which I think is simply the amount of electricity we use from things that are plugged in: electronics, appliances, etc.

As a small business owner, I try to think green. I reuse, reduce and recycle everything I can. Nowadays I even save my banana peels and coffee grounds for D.J.’s compost pile (and I LOVE that I’m dating a guy who composts!). But until I started working for AESP, my laptop and monitor stayed on all the time, until the glow from the screen in the living room woke me up in my house.

In other words, I was not doing enough to minimize my plug load.

AESP guest speaker Carol Sabo, a management consultant for PA Consulting Group, has close to 30 years experience in estimating and forecasting electric energy use and savings opportunities for utility system planning, energy-efficiency programs and end-user customers. She performs energy audits for businesses and colleges and said it’s easier than people think to cut energy costs.

According to Carol, there are three P’s when it comes to decreasing your plug load:

Power management: ensure that all applicable ENERGY STAR® office equipment such as PC monitors (and computers where applicable), printers, and copiers are enabled to go into “low power” or “sleep mode” when not in use.

Power off: educate staff to turn off plug-load business equipment (PCs, monitors, printers, copiers, speakers, task lights) after hours and when not being used for several hours. Use timers to control the operating hours of other inefficient equipment such as large coffee makers that heat water 24 hours a day, water coolers that have hot and cold water taps, and other plug load equipment.

Purchase “best” ENERGY STAR equipment: develop and enforce purchasing/leasing standards that specify the most efficient ENERGY STAR office equipment including copiers, printers, task lighting, vending machines, water coolers, clothes washers, and other plug-load equipment.

Here is a quick list of things you can do in your home business to reduce energy use:

• Use laptops instead of desktop computers to save 50 percent of the energy.
• Replace any old, big CRT computer monitors with LCD monitors.
• Install ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in the task lights on your desk.
• Use a power strip at your desk for computers, individual printers, and other electronics that can be turned off completely. Power off equipment and then turn off the power strip to cut down on phantom energy use (many electronics still draw some power even when you use their built-in power switch to turn them off).
• Eliminate the 3-D screen savers, which can double the energy use of your computer at rest. And choose dark colors over light, because it takes more energy for the screen to produce light colors.
• With water coolers, turn off the hot tap, and install a timer on the cooling tap.
• Turn off computer speakers when you don’t need them.

Last night my wonderful friend Erin came over. As frequently happens, the two of us started discussing relationships, guys, life stages, etc. Erin’s in her 20s, and many of her friends are married. They have houses and husbands and Christmas cards with family pictures. They’re starting to have babies.

Most of my friends are either perpetually single or divorced and looking, but that doesn’t mean Erin and I didn’t ask the same question: “Why them and not me? How’d they figure things out?”

When I quit my job to start my own business as a freelance copywriter, I looked at the leadership at my old company and asked, “What do these guys have that I don’t?” When the board of directors used to gather around the conference table, the men were all handsome, trim, well-spoken, organized. And wealthy. Very wealthy.What brought them to that table? I asked myself. Why did they get to come in with a portfolio while I ordered lunch for the meeting from the local deli?

In those first fearful days after I quit, I revisited that question. Why not me?

My answer…. No reason in the world.

I’m just as smart as those guys. I have just as much ambition. I’m just as organized and as adventurous. So I started my own business, and I have big plans. And Erin has big plans: her Ph.D., her teaching and research. Plus she has a full-time job sharing her spirit and energy with everyone she meets.

As things kick up, I keep asking myself… “Now that you’ve got what you wanted, is this really what you want?” My answer for now is yes. I’m where I want to be in my career. I want to be at that conference table with the portfolio.

Note to Erin and to myself regarding this question and relationships: Just because our cohorts are living what our society calls a rich American life (2 kids, 2 dogs, 2-parent household with Christmases at the grandparents’), that doesn’t mean that we’re not living a rich American life (Erin’s pursuit of a Ph.D., my business). If we really wanted to walk down the aisle and end up in the delivery room, we could. But we’ve got other plans.

Here are a few things I’m grateful for today that have nothing to do with my business, but they do relate to today’s other post:

1. Grateful for timing:
   The orthopedic surgeon’s office took pity on me and let me sneak in this morning for an appointment. If I hadn’t seen him today, it would have been more than a week.
2. Grateful for a diagnosis:
   I have a nasty case of a fairly common running injury: patellar maltracking. It’s in both knees. The x-ray was cool because it looked like two mountains that had had the tops blown off. My knees look a little worse than the bottom picture to the right.
3. Grateful for perceptions:
   The cute lab tech looked at me and handed me a SMALL/MEDIUM pair of hospital shorts to put on for the exam. SMALL/MEDIUM! Not PUDGY/RIDICULOUS! I love that man.
4. Grateful for knowledge:
   Now I know what’s wrong with my knees. I know it’s not all in my head. It’s repairable, but it’s going to take some time and patience. I have neither, but at least I know.
5. Grateful for being back on track:
   The doctor told me I can keep training with the running team. I just need to start physical therapy to make my inner thigh as strong as my outer thigh and perhaps get my hips into alignment.
6. Grateful for small chances:
   There’s a chance I’ll have to have surgery, but it’s small. PT should fix things, he hopes.
7. Grateful for bad hearing:
   My left ear seems to be losing some hearing. If I lose a little more hearing, I probably won’t hear the grinding like I do now. The grinding won’t ever go away, the doctor said.
8. Grateful for stubborn boyfriends and supportive coaches and running buds:
   D.J. bugged the heck out of me to get to the doctor. Pete gave me the name of this specialist and helped keep my spirits up. Coach James (who is in the March issue of Runner’s World) keeps checking on me, and Coach Joe said I better keep smiling or else. What wonderful friends to have.

Ouch. My knees hurt.

Let me clarify. Several years ago I must have swallowed two tablespoons of ground glass. Ground glass is indigestible, of course, so each of my knees thoughtfully stored a tablespoon of ground glass behind each patella. The sound, the feeling, the grind…. it makes ME sick. My knees have grossed out ex-boyfriends at inopportune moments. I once made a general practitioner wince.

As I add more and more miles on in my marathon training, my knees get more inflamed. It makes me cranky. It makes me want to stay home and live on cupcakes and give up my running, my social life and sleeping, which is often disturbed when I turn over and hit a patella.

My knees hurt.

Yesterday I visited a sports masseuse, and he, a specialist in runners, said he had never seen anything like my knees. Sidenote: he also said I had a tighter ass than LaDanian Tomlinson, a star football player for the San Diego Chargers. The therapist said this was not a good thing, of course, but STILL. I’ll take it as a compliment, dang it.

At any rate, the pain I feel in my knees will not go away with the wave of a chiropractor’s wand. It’s a systemic problem. My knees are flawed. And someone probably has to rebuild them to make them work correctly.

How does this relate to copywriting? I’m getting there….

In the last two weeks, three groups have come to me with pieces they want fixed immediately. They want one trip to the copywriter to make all their marketing problems go away. But the problems the pieces have are systemic. I can’t just change a few words here and there and POOF — perfect, effective copy appears.

Example: A group is putting together a demo of their services. “We’ve gotten all the copy approved, and we’re in the final stages,” the coordinator told me as he handed the copy to me for the first time. Oh dear. This means that I can’t do what I do best, which is to organize thoughts, group topics, make recommendations on length, style, tone, etc. It means that I should change the president’s “its” to “it’s” and hand it back with a smiley face. I couldn’t do that. The piece was in big trouble, and I tore it up.

I feel their pain. They’re going to the expert (me) to make everything work right again. My clients know their projects have problems, but it’s up to me to tell them that their projects are intrinsically flawed. And this is painful for both of us.

If I didn’t care so much, I’d probably just throw the bandage on the copy, invoice and move on. But they will not have an effective piece, and they sure won’t keep using me if the copy I help them with is not effective. So I grimace and attack the copy with a fire red pen. And I go back to the client with justifications, apologies and a heartfelt request that they don’t undertake the next project until we’ve had a chance to organize it. And most of the time it works.

But then you get clients like me who get the news that their systemic problem is going to take time, money and patience to fix, and we pay our bill so we can go home and cry.

By the way, since I’m fighting through pain, cupcake cravings and sleepless nights, don’t you want to donate to my marathon fundraising? Click here, pretty please!