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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A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers, including info on scam agents.

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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

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)

Thursday, April 17, 2003

Dallas
[from a memoir in progress]
We lived in military housing in Dallas, in an apartment in a long line of World-War-II-era billets on a street called Trainer Circle. Dad was a recruiting officer, something of a bigshot judging by the celebrities he got photographed with. My brother Bill had recently been born, and we now were a family of four.

As in all periods of my life, my memories are mixed with images from home movies. Dad had his camera by Dallas, and over the years I’ve spent hundreds of hours watching snippets of my life pass by.

But let me begin with a couple of memories that were not photographed. One is of my bathtub game with cockroaches. Roaches would come out of the plumbing when I was taking a bath, and I would line them up on toy boats in the water. When my mother – or sometimes a black maid, I recall – came in to check on me, she would pull me out of the water immediately, as if I might be poisoned to come in contact with critters that I, after all, considered friendly actors in my bathtub adventures.

My second sexual memory happened in Dallas. I was playing doctor with a girl my age in a closet. Apparently her parents were visiting mine. At any rate, we were caught. I don’t remember if I was punished or not. And I really don’t remember the game itself – what I remember is the closet door opening and looking up to see an adult. What I remember is being caught.

Movie memories from Dallas are many. All of our Christmases in Dallas were filmed, starting from about 1946, when my brother was a year old and I was seven. In one home movie I am struggling to ride my first bike; in another I’m trying on a football uniform, blue and gold in color, my jersey sporting number 7. One year I get a bow and arrow; another a BB gun.

Home movies document a strong sense of community in the military housing in Dallas. The long billets were built parallel to one another, sharing the lawn between them, and families and kids would spill out onto the grass in what the movies record as spontaneous block parties with dozens of kids running around and considerable horseplay for the camera by adults, many of whom hold drinks in their hands.

I started school in Dallas at George Peabody Elementary School, which many kids called “George Peed All Over His Body” school, a description that always caused everyone to break into hysterics. I remember that a few kids rode ponies to class. I remember that sometimes, when weather permitted, a few kids came to school barefoot. I never did either.

I remember nothing of school in Dallas and have no home movies to prod my memory. I did well – or at least there would be evidence later than I did well in grades one and two in Dallas. I remember being friends with twins, named Jimmy and Johnny as I recall, who were Texas natives with thick accents. I had developed something of a southern accent myself by now, from Virginia and Texas, which also would have consequences.

I have a photograph from the Dallas years in which I am dressed in a cowboy suit and sitting on a pony. A cameraman with his equine prop had made the rounds through the military housing, getting considerable business I’m sure. Sitting on the pony, I look more shy than enthused. I don’t look like much of a cowboy.

When we left Dallas for Southern California, it was a major transition in several ways. Dad had decided to retire from the Navy. I wouldn’t learn until later what a momentous decision this was under very unusual circumstances, coming unexpectedly a few years after his decision to go for thirty. Dad had gone west first and bought a home in Pasadena, the first home my parents were buying instead of renting. This meant mother would be driving from Texas to California alone with two kids in the car.

There was a big sendoff, and someone used the movie camera to record it. I was sick, stretched out in the back seat of the car with a fever. The most stressful part of the drive would be across the long desert, and a male neighbor showed mother how to attach a canvas bag of water in front of the Packard’s radiator to cool the engine. It also would be wise to cross the desert at night instead of in the heat of day.

I recall no trauma from the trip. Mother was an extraordinarily capable and independent woman, a trait that would make her more suited to be the wife of a sailor than a civilian since the former demanded more responsibility during the long periods when her husband was at sea. The adjustment to civilian life would prove to be difficult for them both.

The adjustment to life in Pasadena was difficult for me. I soon learned that many kids in Southern California thought I talked funny and had very peculiar manners. They weren’t shy about sharing this with me.

4/17/2003 07:33:00 AM | 0 comments

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__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