The Writing Life: reflections by a working writer.

The Writing Life: reflections by a working writer. The Writing Life

Reflections of a working writer, a university screenwriting professor, and the editor of Oregon Literary Review.

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Charles Deemer

Editor,
Oregon Literary Review

MFA, Playwriting, University of Oregon

Writing faculty, Portland State University (part-time)

Retired playwright and screenwriter.
Active novelist, librettist and teacher.

Email: cdeemer(at)yahoo(dot)com

The eagle flies!

Links:

Literary archive

The Sextant Press

Personal home page

Electronic screenwriting tutorial

References

Bookstore
Highlights:

Finalist, Oregon Book Award

Practical Screenwriting

Love At Ground Zero

More books.

Blogs by (mostly) creative writers:

"Can We Talk About Me For A Change?"
Playwright Debra Neff Nathans

Inkygirl
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a weblog for writers (resources)

Silliman's Blog
Ron Silliman, contemporary poetry and poetics

Maud Newton
literary links, amusements, politics, rants

Darren Barefoot
Technical and creative writing, theatre, Dublin

Rob's Writing Pains
Journey of a struggling writer.

Mad, Mad World
Cara Swann, fiction writer, journalist, "reflections on humanity, random news & my life."

Writeright
Random musings on a writer's life and times.

Flaskaland
Barbara Flaska's compilation of the best online articles about music and culture.

Write Of Way
Samantha Blackmon's written musings on writing (composition and rhetoric).

Alexander b. Craghead: blog
Writing, photography, and watercolors.

Rodney's Painted Pen
Rodney Bohen's daily commentary "on the wondrous two legged beast we fondly refer to as mankind." His pen runneth over.

Frustrated Writer
This one named Nicole.

scribble, scribble, scribble
Journalist Dale Keiger teaches nonfiction scribbling to undergraduate and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University.

The Unofficial Dave Barry Blog
The very one.

The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.

William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.

The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."

A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."

Bow. James Bow.
The journal of James Bow and his writing.

Ravenlike
Michael Montoure's weblog about writing, primarily horror and speculative fiction.

Globemix
By David Henry, "a poet's weblog from Aberdeen, Scotland."

Modem Noise
By Adrian Bedford, a "fledgling Pro SF Writer, living in Perth, Australia."

boynton
"A wry writerly blog named in honour of a minor character in a minor Shirley Temple film."

Real Writers Bounce
Holly Lisle's blog, "a novelist's roadmap through the art and ordeal of finding the damned words."

2020 Hindsight
By Susan.

downWrite creative
Phil Houtz's notes on the writing life.

Vivid: pieces from a writer's notebook
Blog of Canadian poet Erin Noteboom.

The Literary Saloon
The literary weblog at the complete review.

Rabbit Blog
The rabbit writes on popular culture.

This Girl's Calendar
Momoka writes short stories.

Twists & Turns
Musings by writer Michael Gates.

Plays and Musicals -- A Writer's Introspective
A blog by John D. Nugent - Composer, Playwright, and Artistic Director of the Johnson City Independent Theatre Company

The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.

Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it. From concept to completion, it'll be here."

SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative history, philosophy, secret societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.

Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.

Letters From The Home Front
The life of a writer, 21, home schooled, rural living.

Venal Scene
The blog of bite-sized plays inspired by the news (by Dan Trujillo).

'Plaint of the Playwright
Rob Matsushita, a playwright from Wisconsin, "whines a lot."

I Pity Da Fool!
Glenn's adventures in screenwriting.

Time In Tel-Aviv
Hebrew modern literature at its best, by Corinna Hasofferett.

Big Window
Robin Reagler's poetry blog.

John Baker's Blog
Author of the Sam Turner and Stone Lewis novels.

The Writing Life With Dorothy Thompson
What goes on during a writer's busy day?

The Rebel Housewife
Not just a housewife!

Barry's Personal Blog
A running commentary on writing and the writing life.

Bonnie Blog
Maintained by Bonnie Burton of grrl.com.

Writer's Blog.
By easywriter. "From the walls of caves to cyberspace."

Flogging the Quill
Pursuing the art and craft of compelling storytelling, by an editor, Ray Rhamey.

Man Bytes Hollywood
Sharing tools, strategies and resources for the screenwriter's journey.

Mad for the smell of paper
A writing journal.

The Writing Life
A blog by Katey Schultz.

It Beats Working 9-5
A screenwriting blog by a young Canadian screenwriter.

Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Writer & Artist, Dee Rimbaud reflects upon politics, religion, art, poetry, the meaning of life, the nature of God and why toast always lands butter side down on carpets.

Robert Peake
Heart and Mind, Fully Engage ... a poet's website.

Sidestepping Real
By Ren Powell, poet, children’s writer, essayist and editor.

Suggest a writer's blog

The Writing Life...

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
J.D. Salinger

"All my best friends are writers and are dead."
A friend over beer, Berkeley, winter, 1959

"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?"
The Half-Life Conspiracy

After October 31, 2006,
new posts are published at

The Writing Life II

(Posts archived here are from 01/10/03 - 10/31/06)

Saturday, February 08, 2003

Morning people
I'm a morning person. Give me a sunrise before a sunset any day. I awake already at the highest energy level of the day, raring to go.

This morning, for example, I headed out at 6:30a.m. for the recycling center, the van filled with Diet-Rite cans, on the periodic chore of returning them. After that I grabbed a cup of coffee to go and cruised around a bit, enjoying the early morning, listening to jazz on the radio. Sunrise is also the best time to drive, the streets quiet and mellow. In this sense I'm my father's son, who also loved to drive early in the morning. We did a lot of camping in my childhood -- this was in the late 1940s and early 1950s when camping was eccentric, at least to my parents' friends -- and if we were on the road, travelling, Dad would announce, "100 miles before breakfast!" and off we'd go, my mother and brother sleeping in the back seat, I riding co-pilot for my dad as the day's early morning adventure began.

I always thought it would be great to have an early morning girlfriend -- until I met one. Several decades ago, without a woman in my life, I decided to put a personal ad in the newspaper. Among those who replied -- and I was shocked into inaction by how many who did -- was one note that especially appealed to me: a woman identified herself as a surgeon and said she could be reached only between four and five in the morning. My kind of lady! I phoned her and we made a lunch date.

This turned out to be an incredible date. At first, though, I saw all the signs of being stood up. We arranged to meet at a local restaurant, and I got there early, as I usually do, and was sipping wine at the bar, far from the entrance, waiting for her and especially checking out each woman who entered alone, wondering if this were the surgeon. After our arranged time passed, by ten and fifteen and thirty minutes, I began to think I was being stood up. I ordered a glass of wine for the road.

Just as I was finishing it, a red sportscar pulled up onto the sidewalk and stopped right in front of the entrance. This wild looking lady -- long dark hair, in bright colors, looking a bit like a very wealthy gypsy -- rushed into the lounge and said to a man sitting alone at her end of the bar, "Are you Charles?" The guy's reply was perfect: "No, but I wish I was." I identified myself, and the surgeon told me to get into her car, she had a picnic packed. And off we sped to Washington Park overlooking the city for a gourmet lunch with a view.

This was an auspicious beginning indeed. The woman was from a small town in Idaho that I was familiar with, in northern Idaho logging country, and I thought I had found a very special lady. She took the day off, and we spent several days in her downtown apartment on the 20th-something floor of a high rise, with its deck and spectacular view of the Portland skyline. We seemed to be getting along great.

Then she revealed the terms of our arrangement. I was to move in and be her kept man. I could write all day. In the evening, I would escort her to the great social events of the city. This would require a new wardrobe -- I was much too casual for such a role. I also should cut my hair shorter and shave off my beard. I would get an allowance so I could quit the freelance journalism I was doing at the time to support myself. I would be her writer-in-residence and boy toy.

I have to confess there were moments when such an arrangement appealed to me. "It's all material," I thought, and I could enter into the arrangement as research for a future book. But in the end my masculine pride or self-respect or good-sense or stupidity, whatever it was, got me to say, No thanks, lady, I am perfectly happy being who I am and doing what I do, and I am not interested in hobnobbing with the city movers and shakers as your escort. And that was the end of that.

But the first picnic! It's still the best "blind date" I've ever had.

2/08/2003 08:26:00 AM | 0 comments

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Sketch says, "Happiness is sunshine and a bone."

__The Writing Life

After October 31, 2006, new posts are published at

The Writing Life II

After October 31, 2006,
new posts are published at