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This past weekend was a busy one. I had the opportunity to attend the Write2Ignite! writing conference, and I took two of my children along with me.  Three of their cousins attended as well. The youth class for middle school and high school students was taught by author and teacher Carol Baldwin, so  I signed them up, confident they would discover some things about how to write a story of their own.

And they did. My daughter Cassie, now 12, really enjoyed it and said she had learned a lot. My son John agreed.

What I didn’t expect, though, were the opportunities to work on other skills as well — life skills. When we arrived at the conference early Saturday morning, Cassie began looking around for her friend who was also coming to the conference.  The friend hadn’t arrived yet, though, but there was a girl about Cassie’s age sitting with her dad.

“Go over and introduce yourself,” I said, recalling the class in communication Cassie took last summer. “Remember what you learned? Just go up, tell her your name, and ask her what her name is.”

Cassie looked at me with her eyes wide, like a deer in headlights, as they say.  “Well…” she began, and I knew she was thinking up a reason not to go. Moments later, the girl’s friend arrived, and they were sitting together.

“You know,” I said to Cassie, “You can learn a lot more than writing at this conference. You have a chance to reach out to other people. Your friend is coming, but she doesn’t know your cousins — introduce her and pull her into the group. Then, you can go meet those two girls over there, and pull them in as well. What an great opportunity!”

“Maybe,” Cassie reluctantly admitted, and she went to find a seat until her friend arrived. That’s when I began scanning the room for someone I knew to talk to. Some people were getting coffee, some were reading, some were just sitting alone at a table. Then I caught myself –  it looked like I had that same opportunity.

Photo by taliesin

This weekend, I will be attending the second annual Write2Ignite! Writing Conference. This conference is for Christian authors who write for children, and I am really looking forward to it.  I know I’m going to come away from the conference encouraged and motivated, but besides all the good information I’m going to learn, one of the best parts about this conference is that I get to share it with my son.

The conference includes joint sessions and workshops for the adults, which focus on everything from writing short stories and magazine articles to developing young adult novels to submitting your work. Editors and authors will be featured speakers, and attendees can choose the workshops that interest them the most.

But the conference also offers a teen track for students in the seventh through the twelfth grades. The teens will attend their own workshops with Jonathan Friesen, author of the novel Jerk California. His goal for these classes is to increase the students’ passion for their writing, leaving them excited about their work and ready to tell their own stories. He’ll talk about characterization, tension, emotion, and dialog, providing the students with a lot of good instruction as they begin (or continue) to create their own stories.

My son John also attended the first conference, and he came back with journal pages full of ideas and a story he had just started writing. This time, he’s older, and I know he’ll glean even more from the classes. Not only is it a great schooling and learning opportunity, but what makes it so special, too, is that he’ll be taking the class with cousins, friends, and new acquaintances — a shared experience they can talk about later, and perhaps one that will help them encourage each other with their writing.

There are some exciting writing opportunities coming up soon!  Here are a couple of them:

Write2Ignite!

I am already gearing up for the next Write2Ignite! Christian Children’s Writing Conference (www.write2ignite.wordpress.com). It will be held in Greenville, South Carolina in February 2010. And the best part is, it’s not only for adults, but for teens as well!

I have the privilege of being on the planning committee again this year, so I get to find out all the details right away. This time, author Jonathan Friesen will be back to teach the teenagers how to get their stories on paper.

Jonathan’s classes cover a range of topics, including characterization, plot, and emotion. Two of my children attended his classes at the last conference, and they both came away from it inspired to write. That, and they really enjoyed staying in a hotel overnight.

NaNoWriMo

If you enjoy writing fiction, then you’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Some of my family members and friends participated last year. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel from start to finish during the month of November. No revising –  just writing, writing, writing.

I don’t think I’ll be trying it this year, as I already have many projects on my plate, but I might just sign up my son John for NaNoWriMo. Students 13 years old and up can participate through the regular site, but they have to stick to the 50,000-word goal. However, there is also a Young Writer’s Program (www.ywp.nanowrimo.org) set up for children 17 and under. Here parents can set the goal for the word count based on the age of the child. After that, the plan is the same — to write and write during the month of November with no revisions at all.

What’s the purpose? To encourage creativity, build confidence, improve writing skills, and teach time management techniques as students work to reach their word-count goal. You know, I just might sign up all my children!