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.

Posts from past seven days. For others, see archives (below).

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Extraordinary free info useful to writers when marketing.

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

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Short guide to correct screenwriting format and writing style.

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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)

Friday, May 23, 2003

Eugene
[from a memoir in progress, which began on 4/13/03]
After a year in Portland, we knew it was time to go back to school. We’d accomplished what we came to Portland to do – I now was a published writer, sometimes getting paid well, sometimes not so well or even not at all. But I was being published regularly and making some money at it. I had reason to call myself a writer.

We had no idea if the University of Oregon would readmit us or not. To our delight, we both remained in good standing. The chair of the English Department, who had died from cancer while we were in Portland, had put a letter in my file, urging the department to accept me and reinstate my teaching assistantship if ever I applied again. We moved back to Eugene.

Carol picked up her studies where she had left off, but I made a change in my direction. I abandoned Ph.D. studies and returned instead as an M.F.A. candidate, working toward a creative writing degree in fiction.

Once again, I was happy and euphoric. Carol continued to go through changes, which I either didn’t notice or didn’t give significance to. An example of the latter was a change in our lovemaking.

In our first year together, our erotic bonding grew and intensified. Carol had what she described as “a vaginal orgasm” for the first time in her life. This had happened in our blue tent while we were camping at the beach. One night she had become so mesmerized by the roar of the ocean while we made love that the rhythm of waves seemed to infiltrate her bodily pulses until her erotic being was moving in the same rhythm as the sea, carrying her off to sensual sensations she’d never experienced before. For months afterward she could come to a similar orgasm almost without effort. Her new pleasure intensified my own, and we seemed erotically connected as never before.

Then she changed again. Our pattern of lovemaking returned to its earlier mode when Carol was less submissive, less carried off by forces beyond her control and more in control herself, more consciously attentive to her own needs. I didn’t mind the difference enough to worry that something was wrong. From my point of view, sex with Carol was never disappointing. At least not yet.

But our lives were changing. We always had worked hard and played hard, we always drank heavily, but now we seemed to be hosting parties more than ever, surrounding ourselves with friends, which gave us less time alone together. One reason we hosted parties was that we could afford to. Unlike most graduate students, who struggle to make ends meet, we found ourselves rolling in dough. I had my teaching assistantship and a writing income. Carol got her old fellowship back. Soon the Cold War G.I. Bill was initiated, which paid me to go to school. Then I received a lucrative Shubert Playwriting Fellowship.

I switched my M.F.A. program from fiction to playwriting for two reasons. The first was that I was struggling with the novel that was to be my thesis. I learned that my weakness was in writing descriptive prose, a failing that didn’t matter as much in short fiction as in the novel. I had a hard time creating a strong sense of place with language.

The second reason was that the first one-act play I wrote won a national competition. I was flown across the country for the premier, wined and dined, and treated like a bigshot, an important artist. I liked the feeling of being successful. When I later learned about the Shubert fellowship competition, I entered it and finished second. The next year I won.

Carol was less interested in scriptwriting than in prose. She stopped being my editor, which drew us further apart. This movement was like the subtext of our lives, changing the foundations of our relationship before either of us became consciously aware of what was happening. I was still living in the belief that I was deliriously happy with my soul mate. Carol was keeping her own feelings to herself but I saw nothing threatening or worrisome in her behavior. We worked hard and we played hard. We made progress on our degrees.

Summer came and we discovered that we had thousands of dollars in our savings account. We decided to camp from the west coast to the east coast and back again.

5/23/2003 06:24:00 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