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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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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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, August 28, 2003

Love in the Ruins
I'm working on the first presentable draft of my short novel, Love in the Ruins and am going to serialize it here. It's written in short (2-5 page) chapters, and is the tragic love story between two NYU students in the aftermath of 9/11, an American and a Muslim from Indonesia.

Chapter 1

Before the New York sun had climbed to noon, by which time television stations around the world were repeating, like a film loop in a pornographic peep show, images of unthinkable catastrophe; before TV anchors found their gravest tones of voice with which to christen the shocking events “a day of infamy,” no less historic and horrific than December 7th or November 22nd, days etched permanently into memory by all who experienced them; before America’s violent baptism under a clear blue sky of a late summer morning; it was, after all, just an ordinary day beginning in an ordinary way.

Commuters by the tens of thousands streamed into the city by train and subway, by bus and car, by bicycle and on foot, rushing forward in a relentless march to another work day, with computers to boot, phone calls to make, meetings to attend, deals to close, new deals to initiate. Deals were lurking everywhere (“the business of America is business”) in this city that considered itself the financial center of the world and therefore the center of western civilization, New York, stretching awake with no suspicion of how much political innocence could be lost so quickly, oblivious to its vulnerability, oblivious to the march of history. September 11, 2001, was just another day as a great city scurried to life, a day like yesterday and presumably a day like tomorrow. Not an American hurrying to work could have guessed what was about to happen.

Wes, moving along in the flow of this commercial throng, felt apart from it. He was a student, after all, not an employee – and a creative writing student at that, which made him an observer more than a participant. He seldom ventured this far south of the NYU campus but this morning was a special occasion. Mike, his older brother, was in town, and Wes wanted to spend as much time as possible with him. Mike lived in San Francisco, where he worked for Jacobs & Smith, a lawyer like their father.

Despite their different career paths, indeed their different interests, Wes and Mike were close. Wes had missed his older brother since the last visit over Christmas, a brief appearance at the family dinner with the latest girlfriend, an attachment that gave the brothers precious little time alone together, which was why Wes especially valued the opportunity to be together today. Mike had taken care of business, the purpose of the trip, sooner than expected, giving them most of his last day together. Wes had no Tuesday classes at the university.

Mike’s college roommate, Jimmy, worked on the 88th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, another lawyer, but it turned out the timing was bad for a visit, so Mike and Jimmy decided to meet briefly before work. This was why the brothers had come to the towers this early in the morning.

“How long will you be?” Wes asked as they walked across a plaza toward the South Tower.
“Jimmy has a meeting at nine. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop.”
“How’s he like working for a big corporation?”
“Jimmy likes making money.”
“So do you, big brother.”

Mike smiled, letting the family renegade have the last word. He admired his little brother more than he’d ever told him. Mike fully expected Wes to write a hit movie or a best-selling novel and become the wealthiest member of the family.

They did not look like brothers. Mike, at six-two, retained the athletic build that had won him accolades in high school, though he hadn’t played organized football since then. His hair was dark and curly, after their mother. Wes took after their father, blond and stocky, though not yet fat, and short enough to wish he were taller.

At the entrance into the building, a balding man, surely a tourist, was bending precariously back, trying to shoot up the overwhelming reach of the tower, barely keeping his balance. Tens of thousands of tourists visited the twin towers of the World Trade Center daily – on normal days, that is, which this one was not destined to be.

Wes and Mike exchanged smiles as they passed the tourist. They entered the building, showed photo IDs to the security guard and moved on.

This was only the second time Wes had been in the building. As the first time, the experience of entering the lobby was overwhelming, and he gawked under the enormous presence of glass and steel, commerce as cathedral. Around him men and women rushed by with more mundane interests, getting to work, turning on computers, beginning the tasks of the day, but Wes hesitated as Mike walked on, taking it all in.

When he realized that Mike was moving away from him, heading toward the elevators, Wes called, “Look for me near the coffee stand!”

8/28/2003 05:36:00 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