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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Love At Ground Zero

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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
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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
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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
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Bow. James Bow.
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Real Writers Bounce
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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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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."

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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.

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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.

The Writing Life With Dorothy Thompson
What goes on during a writer's busy day?

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Barry's Personal Blog
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Bonnie Blog
Maintained by Bonnie Burton of grrl.com.

Writer's Blog.
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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.

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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)

 
Friday, April 23, 2004  
TGIF,Sa,Su,M
Picked up an unusually light script load from students yesterday, giving me more time for myself between now and Tuesday. One of the things I do as a writing teacher is give each student a choice of two writing tracks, which I call the "tree path" or the "forest path." Trees are planners. Forests are sink-or-swimmers. Thus, in screenwriting, trees figure out the 3-act structure of their story before they start writing script pages. Forests just start writing, figuring to structure the mess during rewriting.

Typically most students elect the forest path because it looks easier. Several weeks into the course, they are so lost that they switch to tree. In the end, it comes out about fifty-fifty. Each path gives me work every other week.

My university class this term almost universally chose the tree path -- all but two students! So my reading load is very uneven week to week. So far, only two forests have switched but I expect more to soon. The forest path actually is harder than the tree path, especially in the classroom environment.

So very little to read this weekend! I managed to do some writing on my novel these past few days, which I'll keep on. Also the new libretto. Must not forget the textbook, which I am contracted to finish in August. A few other things I should attend to. This is the inside stuff -- also need to get outside for the usual yard chores. Good weather coming to do just that.

Soon I want to take time to sit down with the opera score and go through each of the MIDI files with score in hand, following along, imagining the singing, curious about the orchestration. Also to start this large pile of opera reading I have to do.

Being busy is better than its alternative, I've learned. Onward.

4/23/2004 08:11:00 AM | 0 comments

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