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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Literary archive

The Sextant Press

Personal home page

Electronic screenwriting tutorial

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Finalist, Oregon Book Award

Practical Screenwriting

Love At Ground Zero

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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.

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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)

 
Monday, March 24, 2003  
You can't go home again
Eugene remains my favorite town in Oregon. I lived there from 1966-1975, getting my MFA in playwriting from the University of Oregon and then teaching while my wife at the time finished up her Ph.D. Then we moved to Salisbury State College on Maryland's Delmarva peninsula.

My graduate school experience in Eugene was wonderful. Uncharacteristically for graduate students, we were rolling in dough. My wife had a full fellowship for her Ph.D. studies. I was a T.A., then later received a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship. I also was a regular contributor to Northwest magazine and performing weekly as a folksinger (ditto for my wife). One nine-month school year, we saved almost five thousand dollars, and this while keeping most of the graduate students in the English department in beer and spaghetti.

So Eugene is close to my heart. Still, the cliche is true, you can't go home again. Everything is different now. But I have many, many fond memories in Eugene, despite the marriage breaking up (my wife came out of the closet ... see my play, The Half-life Conspiracy).

Saturday night's basketball games were fun. The first was close for a while, the second a slaughter from the start (#1 seed LSU against a small college in Texas). We decided not to stay for tonight's game because they moved the start time back to 8:30pm, so we came on home and can watch it on television, or a more competitive game.

The tournament was dampened by the war, of course. The more thought I give to war, the more I believe that when civilizations advance they put down the seeds of their future destruction -- the abhorrence of war. It's perhaps the greatest irony the gods have created ... as we get too "civilized" for war, we set ourselves up for defeat by the "barbarians" who have not grown too "advanced" for war. I don't see us winning the long-range war, however many battles we win along the way, because I don't think the west has the stomach for the cost it would take to win. I'm not depressed by the war but by the outrage against it. If a war against the most barbaric tyrant since Stalin isn't "a just war" (especially in the context of 9/11), then there's no hope in the long run. What is happening to us, it seems to me, is what happens to all civilized nations throughout the history of the world, and I find it sad and tragic but less surprising the more I think about world history.

So ... the immediate battle with Iraq will be longer and bloodier than we anticipated apparently. I expect we'll prevail. But then lose the peace, which probably already has happened. I still hope the Iraqi people themselves "save us," as only they can, but we betrayed them a decade ago, encouraging them to rebel and then leaving them to Saddam, so I don't blame them for not trusting us again. I have no idea what will happen this time through. I just have this gut feeling the longer war is already over. Very sad.

3/24/2003 05:08:00 PM | 0 comments

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