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!

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)

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Breakdown
[from a memoir in progress, which began 4/13/03]
I’m not sure when my obsession about my daughter began. I was waiting for divorce papers, but as I waited I began to feel guilty for abandoning my daughter. If I divorced, with Dee a thousand miles away, even farther if work took me out of the west, would my daughter even know who I was? I became obsessed with seeing her. I became obsessed with becoming a part of her life.

Like many obsessions, mine reached the breaking point. I was teaching my Comp class one morning when I suddenly had the urge to drive to Southern California and see my daughter. It was as if I were possessed by a demon, telling me to drop everything and go. So I did. I cancelled the rest of the class without explanation. I got in my car and started taking the freeway south directly from campus.

Hours later, I felt guilty again – now for leaving without telling Carol, without canceling the rest of my classes for the week. I made phone calls and did both.

Dee was naturally shocked to see me. Worse, she thought my distraught presence meant I’d come to my senses and wanted her back, wanted to be a family again. She must have still loved me because she behaved as if I were there on a mission of reconciliation.

I saw my daughter – and felt a wave of sadness stronger than anything I’d felt before. I immediately knew that it was not going to be possible to raise her, not in the way a full-time father did. This was surely a romantic notion. I was still too selfish to make any of the sacrifices required of parenthood. I was infatuated with the idea of being a father but knew nothing about its responsibilities. All the same, I felt sad to realize that once again I had to leave my daughter and Dee. As soon as I arrived, I understood I had to leave them. It had been a mistake to come.

Needless to say, Dee didn’t think much of my decision. She must have thought I was crazy, and in a sense I was. I didn’t know what to do next, only what I shouldn’t do. I could not reconcile with Dee under any circumstances.

I stayed in Southern California in a campground for a few days. I mailed a letter to the chair of the English Department, telling him that for personal reasons I had to resign my teaching assistantship. I wrote Carol that I loved her and that I was coming back – eventually. I stayed in the campground with my guitar and wrote several talking blues about the mixed-up, sorry state of my life, managing to infuse each song with ironic humor and self-parody. I was learning how to turn my most painful and mismanaged experiences into art. I was learning how to make myself the butt of my own jokes.

The Andersons and Crawfords came to visit me in the campground. They must have thought I’d gone nuts, too.

When I returned to Eugene, Carol welcomed me with open arms. It was if the last barrier between us had been removed. The divorce papers arrived, and I signed them. Dee was very gracious in her terms, asking for no alimony and little child support. I always paid it.

Carol wanted to know what I wanted to do. Be with you, I said – and become a writer. I was thinking of moving to Portland for a while, where maybe I could get a job writing for a newspaper. I felt like I’d caused a scandal in Eugene and needed to get away until things cooled down. To my astonishment, Carol said she would drop out of school, which meant giving up her fellowship, and come with me. I felt like we were a team, true soul mates.

We packed up and drove my VW to Portland, to find work and to begin the serious process of turning me into a writer. It felt like a team effort.

5/21/2003 07:18:00 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