Pamela Leavey

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Category: Writing

Writers On Writing: Phillip Lopate

When writing a first-person narrative, we can turn to Phillip Lopate’s essay “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character” (Griffin 15) for ideas on how we can use our “character” to tell our story. In his essay, “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character,” Phillip Lopate writes on why he feels it is necessary to “turn oneself into a character” when writing nonfiction from the first person narrative perspective.

Indeed, Lopate posits that “the people on the page—it scarcely matters whether they appear in fiction or nonfiction—will need to be knowable enough in their broad outlines to behave “believably,” at the same times as free willed enough to intrigue us with surprises.” (Griffin p. 15) In other words, readers need someone or something to identify with and connect with when they read a nonfiction essay or a piece of fiction.

We are all unique beings, and as Lopate says, “Who wants to read about that bland creature, the regular Joe?” (Griffin p. 16) My thoughts when reading Lopate’s essay drifted to my own characteristics and behavior that sets me apart from others. It is precisely because I am a “character,” one who is unique and different, as so many who know me say, that I write sometimes with ease and other times with trepidation, from the self, sharing my idiosyncrasies’ in the form of the word. I write to unburden my heart and soul. I write in speculation, to share my life, my knowledge and my experience that I might touch even just one person with my words that they may know there is someone else out there who might feel what they feel and cannot themselves commit to words.

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Five Ways to Kick Start Your Writing

Now that I have confessed to not writing for a very long time, I thought it would be a great idea to share five ways to kick start your writing. I’ve used these ideas in the past and I am working through them yet again, in effort to kick start my writing again. I know the struggle is very real for so many writers. Let’s get writing… Here we go!

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Top Ten Reasons I am Not Writing

I have to say, I been thinking about this problem for quite some time now. This thick, cold steel wall of writer’s block that now seems wholly and completely impenetrable. As I ponder this problem yet again, today I have come up with the top ten reasons why I am not writing.

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Breaking A Long Spell of Writer’s Block

Greetings of the Day to All…

I’ve been working on breaking a long spell of writer’s block, that has quite frankly, gone on too long. Writing here on a more regular basis has been very helpful and I’m starting to feel accountable to showing up and writing something, anything on this page. The fact is, I’ve got a lot of things to write about and right now that seems more appealing than working on memoir and personal essay revision.

So, I’m a mission to shake off my writer’s block and I hope you’ll join me on my journey as I poke about for interesting things to write about and maybe bring back an old popular topic here, Daily Affirmations.

Life is a path. It’s a metaphor I use often because I am a walker, and over the years I’ve recognized the changes in my life are shifts in the path. One year into the COVID pandemic, I shifting my path. I am not sure where it will lead me. Time, non-existent time, will tell.

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Reflection: Who Am I and Why Am I Here

Who am I and why am I here? Let me fill you in on what I am up to… I’ve been working on my website for a couple of months now. It had fallen by the wayside while I was in school for six and half years. A month ago, I had written here that I was working on “getting back on track with my writing.” I have to say, it feels good to be back at it. One of the focuses I have had in the past two weeks now is to get back on track with writing Daily Affirmations.

Snowy Egret at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

I’ve been sharing other writers affirmations and then writing my own Daily Affirmations online now for over 20 years. I initially started sharing affirmations online daily on my first business website, the now defunct AromatherapyGoddess.com. The business was a new age aromatherapy and bath & body business. I made my own products and built my website and taught myself to self-market my products online reading everything I could about how to market products online. One of the common themes was that the more content you had online the more traffic you would receive and the longer you would keep someone on your website. That still holds today.

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Poem: Ode to Cappy

Ode to Cappy

Another soul slipped through the crack today.
Gone, gone, gone
From this river, he will be,
Never again to trawl the sea.

Last summer he pulled in his last net,
He hauled up his last catch,
And he shucked his last scallop shell.
He never threw the little ones back.

Cappy caught the last fishing boat today, ending the pain
But I suspect if you asked him where he was going
He’d have said,
I’m going straight to hell, cracking a toothless smile.

I remember the last time I saw him
That smile stretched as wide as the sea
Acting like an eccentric fisherman
However, that might be.

Cappy had a soft spot, much like a tender, tiny scallop
The ones he never threw back,
Those were the most precious
He would crow, and of course he would know.

We saw an angel in the clouds today
Not long after Cappy’s name came up in conversation
He’s still hanging on to the life raft you said
Not ready to be set free.

Cappy was of the river and the sea
And they were too, of Cappy
He knew every river inlet intimately
He lived to roam the sea.

I took a picture of that angel cloud
I didn’t know why when.
Not long after I dropped you off, the word came
Light a candle for Tommy, he has passed.

Some folks will say
This river will never be the same without Cappy
I cannot help
But agree.

Poet’s note: This piece was written March 9, 2017 to an old friend who passed quietly away from cancer. Studying a variety of poetic forms in graduate poetry workshop at Salem State University, elegies are one of the many poetic forms we’ve read and some have written for class. I’m working on a series of 8 – 10 poems for my final in my class, as this piece isn’t to be focused in that collection, I wanted to share it here on my blog. I do have another elegy that I do plan to include in my final collection.

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