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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Finalist, Oregon Book Award

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"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
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The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.

William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.

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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.

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Michael Montoure's weblog about writing, primarily horror and speculative fiction.

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downWrite creative
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The literary weblog at the complete review.

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The rabbit writes on popular culture.

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Momoka writes short stories.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

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Writer's Blog.
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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.

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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,
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The Writing Life II

(Posts archived here are from 01/10/03 - 10/31/06)

 
Saturday, July 26, 2003  
More on historic drama
My best historic drama, in my view, is Sad Laughter, based on the life of Moliere (and later adapted as a screenplay, which my agent thought was the best screenplay I'd ever written although he couldn't sell it). This work evolved slowly, in a process much like the one described by Peter Shaeffer for Amadeus, i.e. an evolution of versions, each less "historic" and more "dramatic" than its predecessor.

My play was originally commissioned by the New Rose Theatre when I was their resident playwright. What was unusual about the commission is that it came with the four actors of my cast -- and I could use only them. My decision to use a narrator who plays a variety of roles came directly from this restriction, as did the highly theatrical style of the play (i.e. the narrator would "change roles" in view of the audience). So did my use of such theatrical devices as the "carnival paintings" with head holes for the actors. The four actors thus play about a dozen roles, with only the actor of Moliere playing no one else.

The resulting play was called The Comedian in Spite of Himself. The artistic director who commissioned it loved it. However, I did not. First, the artistic director discouraged me from exploding the facet of Moliere's life that fascinated me most -- the possibility that he married his own daughter. Second, the play at three acts was longer than I was used to writing and longer than I myself liked to watch. I was able to strike a deal with the director that led to the most unusual run of my playwriting career -- he let me rewrite after we opened. Consequently I rewrote every week, and every week of the 6-week run the audience saw a different play! By the end, I had cut almost 30 minutes from the script.

Audiences and critics loved it, but I still didn't. Several years later I returned to the script, rewrote it into two acts emphasizing the focus I wanted in the first place, and this is Sad Laughter. I consider it one of my best works now (and it recently has garnered the fancy of a director from London, who is visiting a U.S. university and saw the script through a friend, who hopefully will not forget it when she returns to London).

7/26/2003 02:41:00 PM | 0 comments

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