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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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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Highlights:

Finalist, Oregon Book Award

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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.

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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.

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)

Friday, November 18, 2005

Readers & audiences
One of the nice things (and sometimes not so nice) about playwriting or screenwriting as opposed to fiction writing is that you can observe your audience. Seldom does an author of books get the chance to do this. One of my fantasies is sitting next to someone on the bus who is reading one of my books. Well, not counting a textbook ha ha. As a playwright, however, I've had dozens of experiences of sitting in the audience at a play of mine and spending as much time watching the audience as watching the actors. I can get excited as a fiction writer when I discover someone has checked out one of my novels at the library -- how little it takes to excite a marginal writer! -- but it's not the same thing.

My favorite playwright-observer moment happened after a production of my early play Country Northwestern, the title play (and forgotten play) of my new collection. Someone in the audience yelled out, "This play has balls!"

My most disturbing moment was during a production of my MFA-thesis play at the University of Oregon. It was done at a small theater in the round. At intermission, when the lights came up I found myself facing a woman across the stage who was in tears. Her embarrassed husband was trying to comfort her. In fact, this was a proper response to the action but I found myself shaken by how upset she appeared to be. I paced outside during the second act, second-guessing myself about my responsibility as a playwright -- did I really want to cause this woman so much apparent misery? Apparently I decided I did ha ha.

Another unforgettable moment was during a production of my favorite play, The Half-Life Conspiracy, which has my favorite curtain line (found under the title of this blog). The lines are delivered by the main character, alone on stage after a party at 3a.m., on a deck overlooking the Portland skyline, under a few stars. There is a very short pause before the curtain lines are delivered. On this particular night, the very good actor playing the role stretched the short pause into a long pause and a longer pause and an even longer pause, and the lighting guy finally faded to blackout without the curtain line. The actor, it turned out, had spaced out the curtain line! As experienced and good as he was, in the middle of the run he couldn't remember it! I died a thousand deaths in the minute it took the lights to come down.

At the University of Oregon, I saw a production of Pinter's The Homecoming in the round. In the first act, an elderly couple was so upset they got up and left -- and since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, they walked right across the set, in the middle of the action, to get the hell away from this evil play! The actors ignored them, not missing a beat.

As every theater person knows, each audience is different. Some laugh easily, some not at all. There are dead audiences and live audiences. For a playwright, it's a special experience to watch an audience watching your play.

11/18/2005 05:14:00 AM | 4 comments

Comments:

Bingo. I write and publish mostly fiction and it's touch to tell, sometimes, what someone thinks about a project. By the time they talk to me about it, or write a letter or whatever, they've had time to digest it and figure out where it fits in their universe.

But playwriting? Instant reaction. The first reaction, before socialization and cultural obligations and moral certainties fill up their brains. Like the person yelling out "This play has balls." Straight from the gut, no filters. Very cool.

I've only had a single play produced so far but am working on a few more. As I said, my main gig is fiction, but that gut reaction of an audience at a play does call to me.

Nice post.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:18 AM

I call my playwriting class (which I haven't taught in years) the art of writing for actors. Because the actors are what are perceived by the audience. Lousy actors can screw your play up and great actors can make it better than it actually is. What is nice about fiction, thus, is that it is NOT collaborative.

# posted by

Charles Deemer : 8:44 AM

I well remember your play, Country Northwestern, Charles.

In fact, I built the set for the premiere production at Portland's Theater Workshop.
I think Steve Smith directed.

-eric

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:47 AM

Right on both counts, Eric! I didn't know you build the set. Far out. I remember being interviewed on the set for some public TV show on the arts, moderated by Bob something-or-other, an older guy. He's the one who intro'd me to an elderly woman, whose name a shamefully forget, who ended up being something of a patron of my work (!). She's also the one who asked to see a script and returned it with the comment, in reference to my use of "Beat" through the action, "What a creative use of drums!" She was a sweetie. I watched the TV premier of Juniper Tav at her skyline-view downtown apartment, with Bob and other art/theater patrons of the city, in one of those small local moments of glory. Long time ago! I can't get the time of day in this town today ha ha.

# posted by

Charles Deemer : 8:19 AM

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__The Writing Life