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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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
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Real Writers Bounce
Holly Lisle's blog, "a novelist's roadmap through the art and ordeal of finding the damned words."

2020 Hindsight
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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)

 
Thursday, February 02, 2006  
Commuters
Joined the commuters this morning, coming into the city early on an express bus. It's a different world. A full bus, a full freeway alongside our route, bumper-to-bumper coming in, a world I'm glad I miss most the time. Most people I meet have been in Portland ten years or less. By no means a native, I've been here almost 30 years now. When these people rave about how great Portland is, I just smile and let it go in one ear and out the other, because the 1980s was Portland's Golden Age, as anyone who was here then would agree, a time when we elected an eccentric bartender as mayor, when vibrant theater and arts groups were everywhere (the production standards may have been lower but the art was far more exciting -- no one has come close to duplicating what Storefront Theatre used to do here), but you know what they say about progress.

I'm glad I was here then. However, I probably should have left in the 90s. It's not much fun to watch all the changes for the worse. I mean, there used to be free performances of opera, symphony, theater, revues, all summer long in Washington Park, something going on nightly; on the city payroll used to be two artistic directors of theater companies -- it was amazing! Somehow they paid for it all then and somehow they stopped doing that. (There also was a composer on the city payroll!) Portland lost its soul, in my opinion, and now it's another extended bedroom community of Seattle or San Francisco, still in its struggle to become a unique city (not knowing that in the 1980s, it already was; in fact, a Seattle weekly did a feature on the Portland theater scene at that time and argued how much more vibrant it was than Seattle because it had not "gone professional" yet, which is to say, was not unionized with the higher expenses and less daring seasons that great money needs engender. Of course, actors need to make a living, too. There needs to be a balance. Portland's mistake, like the mistake of cities everywhere, was creating an "official" theater company by putting it in a new performing arts center. Within a few years, all but one of the existing vibrant companies went under, having lost their fragile base because now everyone was giving money to the new splendor and its company. A younger generation has now reinvented the off-PAC scene but no one has captured the earlier energy, especially social and political energy, or so it seems to me.)

In the early 80s, my agent from NY visited me (she had business in Seattle and came down) and marvelled at northwest Portland: this is just the way Greenwich Village used to be! she said. Don't let it change. Around the same time, the wonderful NY playwright who writes under the name OyamO came to town when a company did his fine play about Lester Young and Billie Holiday, "The Resurrection of Lady Lester," a play that should get done much more often than it has, that should be a movie as well, anyway, I showed him around town and he thought Portland was a better town for a playwright than NY in terms of what was going on and was available, and he said, Don't let this change. Well, within a decade, everything had changed, in the neighborhood the local taverns and second-hand stores were replaced by boutiques and fancy restaurants, bohemians replaced by yuppies, and in the theater community the PAC was built, Ashland North moved in, and virtually all of the vibrant local companies died (I mean, even the Portland Civic Theatre died!). Time marches on. Rest In Peace.

2/02/2006 07:28:00 AM | 2 comments

Comments:
Truly a sad story, Charles.

I'm glad I was there and part of the theater scene 1977-1985. I sometimes get wistful about PDX, but I guess the fertile city I liked so much doesn't exist any more.

Thanks for the update.

-eric
 
It's a different kind of fertility. The rough edges and reckless energy have vanished, it's spendy and proper art now, and much more dull than it used to be. Well, in theater anyway. I think the music scene is still vibrant.
 
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