Writing Wednesdays: Ask Not What You Can Do For Your Characters...

This Saturday, I'm attending a regional SCBWI workshop entitled "Rx for Creators of Children's Books: Getting Your Stories Right." This will be my first writer's conference since 2005, and so much has changed between then and now I can't imagine the experiences will be anything alike (I hope not, anyway; the last one wasn't much fun). In order to get our minds working for Saturday, we were given a couple of questions to consider by the workshop directors:

1.  How might your current story's character introduce you to a room of strangers?

2.  What does he/she/it whisper in your ear when the going gets tough?

These questions scare me for a couple different reasons. First, I'm now terrified we're going to be expected to introduce ourselves to the 90 other writers attending the conference as if our main character was doing the talking. I HATE speaking in public, but asking me to be clever while doing so is a recipe for disaster. Second, I have no idea how to answer the questions. So I'm hoping some of you might be able to help me out in the comments - can you answer these questions? How would your protagonist describe you? Does your character have any advice for you when life is getting you down? What have your characters done for YOU lately?