Auburn Writer’s Conference

So, I’ve been thinking of attending another AuburnWriter’s Conference, but this time the really temptation is the fact that the lovely and amazing Robin O’Bryant is on the speaker list. But I’m having a hard time committing, and I’m not sure why.

I’ve been making some headway in my own writing lately. Primarily realizing I’m character driven and not plot driven. This explains why all my lovely plot skeletons have amounted to a whole lot of nothing whenever I tried to hang characters on them.

Part of me thinks I came to this bit of self-discovery through simply DOING. I’m writing a lot more than before and making it a priority, rather than the very last item on the agenda (sadly, that’s exercise). But then I recall a fantastic keynote speech given by Joshilyn Jackson at the 2011 Auburn Conference. In it, she said she’d never written a novel containing a character that she hadn’t thoroughly gotten to know for at least 6 years. How did she do this? She wrote short stories about them, little windows into their lives, that gave her the insight she needed to take them through a book-length adventure.

So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I think I’m going to hold off on my registration until the boys start school in August. For whatever reason, the thought of triplets starting kindergarten is kind of providing a “planning roadblock” for me. I need to jump that hurdle before I can even consider anything else. Is that normal? I dunno, but it’s how I’ve got to play it.

Anyone else going to Auburn this year? Give me a shout!