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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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)

Thursday, June 05, 2003

Christmas at the Juniper Tavern
[from a memoir in progress, which began on 4/13/03]
The local news at this time was filled with the controversy of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his many disciples who were building an ashram in central Oregon. The Bhagwan himself was on a vow of silence. I began wondering what he would say once he started talking again. In particular, I wondered what he would say if he were face-to-face with an unemployed logger from Bend. In a larger context, what did the East and the West have to say to one another? How did Eastern mysticism and Western capitalism address one another?

One of my earlier plays was a cycle of one-acts called The Death Cycle. In one of these one-acts was a Zen clown based on the historical character Teng Yin-feng, a 4th century monk. Using this character as a prototype, I created a Zen clown named Swami Kree and created a story that would bring him face-to-face with the unemployed loggers of what I called Juniper county. This became Christmas at the Juniper Tavern, for which Linda wrote another song.

Although we were working together again, Linda and I were drifting apart. Dick and Bev were having marital problems, creating stress that spilled over into our own relationship. Moreover, Crooks and I were spending a lot of time drinking together, and Linda wasn’t used to being left alone. She began to feel neglected and isolated.

When it was time to return to Portland, Linda decided to stay in Bend. She’d found a job she liked. She’d made some girlfriends. Maybe she’d join me later. This would be a kind of trial separation.

Back in Portland, Shaw saved my ass by giving me some work. I presented two new scripts to O’Brien, neither of which was the work he’d commissioned, which already was scheduled on the upcoming season. I assured him it would be done on time. In the meantime, he scheduled staged readings of my two new plays to test them in front of an audience.

I found a new way to survive as an artist. I began to manage apartments for free rent. I had experience, having just managed a resort in Bend, and I found work easily. Linda decided to join me. Somehow we got the piano up to the top floor apartment in the building I was managing in northwest Portland.

But Linda and I never got back into the wonderful rhythm we’d shared while working on Country Northwestern together. I continued drinking too much. She found a job and began to meet new people. Finally she met a guy who interested her. She moved out.

I felt betrayed. I felt I was being abandoned. When she took the piano with her, I felt especially betrayed. I stayed too drunk to cause a real scene, and her new boyfriend was younger and bigger than I was. But it would be years before I understood that I’d caused her more pain with my drinking than she’d caused me by leaving.

At the staged reading, the audience loved Christmas at the Juniper Tavern so much that O’Brien decided to produce it, which required renting another stage from another company. It went up quickly, even before the play about Moliere, which I’d finally finished. Gary came up with the name for the commissioned work, The Comedian In Spite of Himself.

My play about Swami Kree, with Steve Smith again playing my protagonist, was a huge hit. Serendipity returned to my life. A young film director visiting his girlfriend in Portland saw the play and loved it. He knew a lot of people connected with Oregon Public Broadcasting. On incredibly short notice, he managed to put together all the pieces for a public television version of the play. I got well paid for the rights. The week the play appeared on television, there was a half-page spread in TV Guide, which included a small photograph of me.

I felt like I’d finally made it. I was a playwright who was going somewhere.

6/05/2003 05:40:00 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