poetry – Write 2 Be

Challenging Your Own Limitations

March 14, 2014 jcladyluv

I like challenging myself to doing things that I think that I can’t do. Even if I am almost guaranteed that I will end up disappointed at the end of it all, I still like doing it. I don’t know if that makes me a gluten for punishment or a naïve eternal optimist. Whichever one it makes me, I think that in the end I am all the better for the challenges. Either I fail and learn what I did wrong to fail and fix it, or I surprise even myself and succeed at something I had anticipated failing.

An experience is an experience, whether it is a good one or a bad one. Since I have just recently started writing poetry again, I think that I am going to challenge myself to do the NaPoWriMo, the equivalent to NaNoWriMo except you don’t end up with a novel at the end of 30 days but rather 30 poems. It’s 1 poem a day and I would say “how hard can that be” except I know exactly how hard it is to write a good poem.

So this weekend think about what challenges you plan on making for yourself and how you can push yourself to be better and do something that maybe you didn’t even realize you could do. Perhaps you will join the NaPoWriMo challenge with me or maybe you will even do the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge in preparation for National Novel Writing Month in November.

Even if it is a challenge that you’ve made up all your own, just make sure that you challenge yourself regularly. Don’t get comfortable where you are right now in your writing, or in your career, if it’s not where you are planning to stay! Share your challenges here, I would love to hear about them. Stay blessed and have a challenge filled weekend!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv

Revisiting an Old Love

March 3, 2012March 3, 2012 jcladyluv

When I was younger and started writing all I wrote was poetry. I fell in love with what poetry did for me. It allowed me to say everything that I needed to say and express all of the pain that I felt without having to say anything to anyone in particular. I filled up reams and reams of paper with my thoughts and my feelings that I either felt could not be shared with anyone else, or no one cared enough to listen. For years, I suppose until I left a sufficient amount of emotions on the pages that I filled up, that was all that I wrote. Then I found and fell in love with telling a story in novel form and I set out to be a novelist.

In the last couple of days, as I’ve been sorting through some feelings that I don’t even really understand right now, I have somehow found poetry again. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that poetry has found me again. Now I haven’t actually formulated a whole entire poem yet but I can hear it in my head. The different lines from several different soon to be written poems continue to repeat themselves in my head over and over again but they haven’t decided to come together just yet. But I haven’t felt the vibe to write poetry in a very long time and it feels like it might be coming back to me. What’s funny is that I didn’t even realize that I had missed it.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

I Regret Not Being Fearless

September 14, 2011 jcladyluv

“Being fearless isn’t being 100% unafraid; it’s being terrified, but you jump in anyway!”

~Taylor Swift

I was watching an interview the other night on Lady GaGa and her rise to fame and her upbringing. I was excited to watch this interview because while I am a fan of her music, I am an even greater fan of her business savvy and her work ethic. She has certainly made a name for herself and her story didn’t start off that much different from other people that have a particular dream growing up. Of course her upbringing was different in terms of the fact that she probably had a lot more things in the pros column than the cons but the struggle to achieve her dream was still there.

What I love and can appreciate most about her is her bravery and her fearlessness. She has never been and still isn’t afraid to do anything when it comes to accomplishing her dreams and she seems to jump head first into everything without ever really looking back. Watching the interview I found myself wishing that I had that same fearlessness and bravery, both as a child growing up and especially now.

So many times I had opportunities when I was younger to maybe go to some poetry event or open mic night and read some of my poetry or even sing (because I could actually sing a lot better when I was younger) but I was too afraid. Afraid to be on stage in front a crowd full of people, afraid that they wouldn’t like my poetry or like my voice, afraid that I somehow would not be good enough and that maybe the talent that I thought I had was all made up in my head and that no one else would share the same thought. I wasted so much time on all of the cons and I missed out on all of the pros, all because I wasn’t fearless enough.

I guess it’s too late to wonder what could’ve and might’ve been if I had just been brave enough to jump head first into any number of the things that I wanted to do. The only thing left to do now is strive to be brave and fearless from this point on. After watching the interview I was wondering aloud to my best friend, was it just simply too late for me to do the things that I really wanted. I mean I’m 31 now and I’m not getting any younger and my dreams aren’t becoming any more attainable as time goes by. She told me (being the voice of reason that she always seems to be) that it’s never too late as long as I still have the ability and the passion to do those things that I want to do.

That voice of fear was in my ear yet again but this time I don’t plan on feeding into it. I’ve wasted too much time already and now it’s time for me to be brave, and yes even fearless. So how brave and fearless are you willing to be for your dreams? Until next time…Be brave, don’t give yourself anything else to regret!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Writing in the Reality of the Moment

March 16, 2011 jcladyluv

“Reality isn’t the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.”

~Robert J. Ringer

I am a writer of many things. Fiction of all types, poetry, articles that motivate and uplift, and articles that are meant to inform. No one who writes, unless they particularly write nothing but children’s fairytales, is going to always produce things that are considered motivating and uplifting. Some things that people write are just real. It comes from a place of reality and living in the present moment and in the knowledge of knowing that, as much as we would like it to be true, every moment of people’s lives is not going to always be happy and uplifting and completely void of negative obstacles. That’s just not the reality of things.

So when someone tells me that an article that I wrote to be informative and educate people, who may or may not know certain aspects of a health related disease, is stemming from a place of darkness and negativity it makes me want to literally curse them out and throw something, preferably at them. This particular person would like me to write of nothing but motivating and uplifting things and speak of absolutely nothing that might be negative. That’s not real for me.

For one I don’t consider the article that I wrote, “The Rise of Lung Cancer in Non-smoking women”, to be dark and negative. It simply is meant to inform people on things they may not even know concerning the disease. I was informed just by researching the subject. Secondly, I don’t feel like I have to be placed in this box as a writer of only writing and producing motivational articles. I like to write a little bit of everything but most importantly I like to keep whatever I write (except for fiction) very real.

The funny thing to me is that someone making that type of comment to me appeared and came off as completely negative. As if they were someone just trying to get me riled up and trying to plant seeds of doubt or self consciousness in my mind. It’s almost as if they somehow thought that this would make me just all of a sudden change my style of writing and the things that I put out there for the world to see.

Truthfully it did make me angry but it didn’t deter me from writing my way and on my terms. I write from the heart, whatever way I happen to feel, whatever information I want to convey or educate people with. While I do love when people like what it is that I have written, I write for me first and for the world second. Now maybe that’s wrong in some people’s eyes but if I wrote to try and please everyone else then I may possibly be the one who is not pleased with what I am writing and then I am no longer writing for the sheer love of writing.

My words to the world of writers today is to always stay true to who you are in your writing. Everyone is not going to like what you have to say but the important thing is that you say it, however you want to say it. Write for the moment you are living in and from the place you are coming from. Don’t ever let anyone else dictate what your voice as a writer should be.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/