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!

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Finalist, Oregon Book Award

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Love At Ground Zero

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

The Unofficial Dave Barry Blog
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The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.

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

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

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Real Writers Bounce
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2020 Hindsight
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downWrite creative
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The literary weblog at the complete review.

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Momoka writes short stories.

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Plays and Musicals -- A Writer's Introspective
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The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.

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

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

Letters From The Home Front
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Venal Scene
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'Plaint of the Playwright
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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?

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Not just a housewife!

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Writer's Blog.
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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.

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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, March 15, 2003  
Marketing musings
Been thinking about what to do with Love in the Ruins now that I think the screenplay version is close. I like this story a lot, and I think it would make a good movie but I also know Hollywood enough to presume they would change the ending from dark to light, which I don't want to happen, at least not at this point. Clearly the thing I have to do first is write the novel version so my original conception of the story will be established. Then I can decide if I want to do more. At the same time, I'm curious if my take on the story's backdrop (the story could be described as Romeo & Juliet meets 9/11) being marketable to Hollywood is off base, so I've written a "pitch" to a couple agents I know, just to see what the response is (enthusiasm or no enthusiasm -- these things are very easily determined). If the agents are cold, then LaLaLand is a moot issue anyway. Maybe just as well.

At any rate, the novel is next on the agenda. I don't want to make it too expansive from the vision in the screenplay, so I'm looking at a short novel, maybe 60,000 to 70,000 words, pretty much adhering to the story strategy I've already established. If I use the screenplay's protagonist as a viewpoint character, rather than writing omnisciently, I'll also have to do less research (! lazy me) because there are things he naturally would not know. I could pose questions from curiosity, rather than stating facts. So I don't necessarily have to know the answers. Not sure if that's the way to go but am thinking about it. There's still some research I have to do about locales and other things.

This is going to be much fun to write because the screenplay will be a kind of security blanket. I've never done this before, written a screenplay as a draft to a novel. A former student does it all the time, did it the first time in my class, and gave me the idea. She swears by it. I can see its advantages.

So, anyway, that seems to be the plan. Onward.

3/15/2003 09:09:00 AM | 0 comments

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