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

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The literary weblog at the complete review.

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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

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"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.

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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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'Plaint of the Playwright
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Glenn's adventures in screenwriting.

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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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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)

 
Tuesday, August 10, 2004  

Dummy Land
I've been reading Graham Greene's brilliant novel The End of the Affair in an increasing state of shock. It's been decades since I read it -- long enough to forget a few things when I saw the movie a year or so ago, then saw it again on cable recently, a viewing that led me back to the novel. I was shocked to learn -- but should have guessed -- how much Hollywood changed the book in order to replace textured complexity with simplicity any fool can see.

I'll have more to say after I finish the book but let me point out several changes. The book, in part, is the story of a jealous man who hires a detective to follow his ex-lover. Who is she seeing now? The time is World War II and he's also wrestling with the meaning of religious faith, as his lover was at the time.

In the movie, the detective has a young son disfigured by a strawberry birthmark on his face. The woman has been visiting a priest -- is this her new lover?

In the novel, the woman has been visiting a Rationalist/Atheist -- and it is he who has the strawberry birthmark!

I'll talk about the consequences of these changes later. Suffice it to say for now that here, as more recently in The Hours, LaLaLand apparently fears that its audience is too stupid to get the original dramatic tensions in the story and therefore goes out of its way to simplify them. Changing an atheist to a priest, of course, suggests other motives as well -- man, would that have been a story conference to listen in on!

At any rate, I love the novel and think considerably less of the movie, which is perhaps why one should never go to the novel after a film. Except for From Here to Eternity, I don't know if I've ever seen a movie better than its source novel.
 Posted by Hello


8/10/2004 01:02:00 PM | 0 comments

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Sketch says, "Happiness is sunshine and a bone." Posted by Hello


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