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

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Bookstore
Highlights:

Finalist, Oregon Book Award

Practical Screenwriting

Love At Ground Zero

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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.

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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,
new posts are published at


The Writing Life II

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

 
Monday, April 25, 2005  
Another screenplay down
Finished and registered The Wrong Life. Logline: a homeless man discovers a dead body in a park and steals the corpse's identity -- only to learn he now is the star witness in a government case against the mob.

Actually I "stole" and adapted this concept from the brilliant Fugard stage play, Sizwe Bonzi Is Dead, about a South African black man who discovers a body with better social standing and steals his identity. I started this screenplay five or ten years ago, got stuck in the middle, "the blue collar work of screenwriting," as Lew Hunter calls the middle. Then a week or so ago, picked it up again and thought the first 10 or 15 pages were the best screenwriting I'd ever done, was determined to finish it. So I did.

Next screenplay, back to the collaboration with John, next week I think. I'm really enjoying screenwriting again after a several year vacation from it, largely due to my dislike of the Hollywood marketplace. But with a producer taking an option again, and full of new enthusiasm (I could never, absolutely never, be a producer! I don't have the stomach for it.) for Earthly Desires, well, it would be nice for something to happen in my old age. The producer is a fan ("every script you write is good," he told me on the phone last week -- but the question isn't about goodness, it's about marketability!), which always helps. My greatest producer-fan, who used to work for Robert Wise back in the 80s, when I first started screenwriting, has disappeared. But his encouragement was very important to me early on. We all need strokes, especially in the beginning, so we don't conclude we're self-delusional about the quality of our work.

Three of seven agents looking at my mystery have passed. Like the writing. Don't like the protagonist. Since the protagonist is mirrored after yours truly ... ! So they like my writing but they don't like me! That's kind of funny actually. I do have a weird sense of humor, I've been told. Well, I've been disliked by others, and I have several ex-wives who absolutely would agree with them.

A long, difficult student script to get to -- putting it off but should get to it today rather than tomorrow morning when I'll be racing against the lock.

Wrote an essay to send to The Grove Review, the new literary magazine, called "Sex, Love and Marriage: Scenes from a playwriting career," in which I use excerpts from four of my plays over the past three decades to show a constant theme in my work regarding male-female relationships. Also wrote an essay I've been thinking about a long time, "Acceptance Speech For An Award I Never Received," about writing and competition. Both will end up in my archive eventually but giving them some market exposure first. Also have another personal essay in mind. These seem to come in spurts. I don't write an essay for several years, then I write three or four in a month.

This week marks halfway through the term. Really looking forward to summer!

John sent early music for Varmints but won't have time to go over it carefully till Friday.

The book review is the remaining deadline I haven't met. Also Friday, I hope.

And still waiting for my screenwriting book to appear. With its wild nutty cover.

I'm in a mellow mood. Hope it lasts a while. Onward.

4/25/2005 09:15:00 AM | 2 comments

Comments:
brilliant idea for the screenplay Charles, good luck on it. I can tell you right now that is the type of movie I'd pay to see
 
Thanks. Wish you were a producer. And to think I let this idea sit around for 3 or 4 years!
 
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