News/Blog

News/Blog

Running a website is like gardening. It begins with a seed of an idea, and then it grows and multiplies. It's an ongoing journey.

In this News/Blog, I share my experiences with workshops, conferences, and other events. Albert Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” Sharing is the way to assimilate lessons.

Thank you for coming by and following The Writing Keys!

News from Vancouver (Photo MCArnott)

When Plotting Goes Micro

Every book has a macro-plot (the overarching story) and a micro-plot (the small scenes that weave the main story and its characters).

During a Zoom session hosted by Authors Publish, on January 12th, 2022, featured guest and children’s book author John Claude Bemis addressed micro-plotting.

I..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog

Join that Zoom Meeting for Writers!

It was 5 am in Jerusalem and 8 pm Vancouver local time on November 2nd, 2021 when Rena Rossner joined the North Shore Writers Association, for a Zoom meeting.

I didn’t even have to go anywhere, yet I wasn’t sure I’d join at first. I may have Jewish friends, but I don’t write fiction…

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog

The Query Countdown

The countdown has begun. On September 4th, I sent a query to four of the first twenty agents I had selected out of my initial list of 50. Replies may come within 4-6 weeks unless I get none. A no reply means either implicit rejection or my submission is still among the hundreds of queries an agent..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog

Working on My Book Proposal

All I have been doing in the past weeks is working on my book proposal, the one I wrote more than a year ago. Since then, learning and practice have helped me identify the mistakes I had made, then.

A book proposal is like a business plan. It will either convince agents to read my manuscript..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog

What Is a Memoir?

Memoir is a writing genre that is often misunderstood. It is neither a biography nor an autobiography – see my Interview of a Memoirist published in WordWorks (pages 21-25), the magazine of the Federation of British Columbia Writers.

A memoir is not a biography, which is about the life..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog

The Power Of Accountability

Ah, the power of accountability if only to oneself.

Out of frustration one day, I wrote down my mental roadblocks about the memoir I had finally completed. It forced me to review how I got to those roadblocks, to ask myself questions, and to think of a course of action. Before I knew it, I..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog
Welcome to my website!

Welcome to my website!

Who said, “Never say never”? I had to look it up. Charles Dickens coined the phrase in 1837, in Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers.

I was working on a memoir – then – knowing I needed a website yet resisting it. As if the digital world needed just one more… Besides, I was..

Posted by Marie-Claude Arnott in News/Blog