Month: August 2011

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It’s All About Accountability

August 29, 2011August 29, 2011 jcladyluv

“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.”

~Moliere

So today I had planned on working on so many different things pertaining to my writing and my many other ideas. I even made a list for the week of the specific goals that I really want to get accomplished this week and my best friend made a list too in which we emailed to each other so that we can hold each other accountable for them.

Now I know the week’s just gotten started and there is plenty of time during the week to actually accomplish those things but I guess I just thought that as excited as I was to get started this morning, I wouldn’t get stalled as soon as I sat down at the computer. However, that is exactly what happened.

So I decided to write this post because it is actually one of the only steps that I have made thus far today towards my goals for this week which include posting here at least 3 times this week. I suppose you could say I used my lack of focus and concentration to my advantage specifically for this blog post. That way if I do nothing else today then I have at least posted 1 of my 3 blog posts for the week.

Now I am not completely giving up hope for producing something else over the course of the rest of the day but I really hope that tomorrow will be more eventful and more productive. I have a very ambitious list for the week but I have the very best friend and motivator in the world, which happens to be one hell of a writer, with very high standards that will hold me accountable for anything that I do not get accomplished.

On that note I guess I better go continue staring at the computer hoping that the words will somehow begin to flow and that my mind won’t continue to wonder. Until next time…..How do you hold yourself accountable?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

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

The Writer and Their Distractions

August 24, 2011August 25, 2011 jcladyluv

“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.”
~ Adam Hochschild

I have come to realize and accept the fact that writing completely without distractions is essentially impossible. From the television, to social media, and just life in general, distractions are just a part of anyone’s career path. I’ve also discovered that there are in fact some distractions that are not really a distraction, simply background material for you next story, or inspiration for your next article. When writers go to coffee shops to get some work done, most people would wonder how that is conducive to one’s writing because there is so much noise and so many different conversations going on at the same time around you. What non-writers fail to realize is that those multiple conversations can work their way in to so much of your stories or inspire new one’s.

Those aren’t the distractions that hinder me when it comes to my productivity. One of the biggest distractions that can be my downfall, yet can also be my inspiration, is the television. I try to escape it but there’s always something on it that intrigues me and gets the wheels in my mind turning and thinking of other ideas. Now this would be good if I was struggling with coming up with ideas but the problem is I have way too many ideas. But if I turn the television off then the complete silence becomes an even bigger distraction than the TV itself.

I guess a writer can never really get away from their distractions completely. There are many ways that they could probably limit or eliminate them in an effort to become more productive but maybe the key is in figuring out how to make the distractions work for you. I haven’t quite mastered that part yet but I am working on it everyday. I did manage to come up with a small list of a few things that hopefully will enable those writers who are having the same struggles with distractions that I’m having:

Write By Hand- This enables you to get away from the computer completely, and all of the distractions that the computer holds. Also having to actually write out your words allows you to examine them as you go along and sometimes the words flow easier.

Turn off the Phone- No one can help but to look at their phone when it rings or when you get a text message and of course if you look at the phone when it rings then you are most likely going to answer it. To avoid this timely distraction turn the cell phone off for the amount of your time that you decide to write.

Close out the window with the Internet- If you absolutely can not see yourself writing long-hand and must use the computer then be sure to close all other windows besides the one with your project. While you are typing out your story, or whatever project you are working on, have no other screen up or minimized waiting on you to click on. If you can see the other window (even minimized) you will want to click on it. It almost sounds too simple but it really works!

Write every Morning- Getting up an hour earlier in the morning allows you time when the rest of the world, and your household, is still sleep and you can have complete concentration on your work before your day even really gets started. Now this one is hard for me to do but I think I am even going to put more effort into making this one work for me.

Find your Place- Now some writers have certain places where they have to write. They literally can not write anything if they are not in their special writing place. So if there is a place that the words just flow easier and naturally then that’s where you should probably try to write all of the time. I believe I am one of those writers but economically it just isn’t possible for me to go where I need to go everyday to write.

If any of you writer’s out there has any tips and ideas on how I, or any other writer with this same problem, can minimize their distractions, or make them work for them, please feel free to share. Until next time…I will be busy fighting off my current distraction, the TV!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Are You Waiting for the Muse To Strike?

August 15, 2011 jcladyluv

“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.”

~Gerald Brenan~

There are a lot of notions and fantasies about being a writer. The idea of waiting for the muse to suddenly walk into your atmosphere and only writing when inspired is a nice way to look at the life of a writer and a very nice fantasy. It’s the way I looked at writing once upon a time, largely due to the fact that at one point in my life it seemed as if the muse never left me and I was always inspired in one way or another. I never had a problem with only writing when inspiration struck because with me it always seemed to strike. It was when the muse left and the inspiration was no longer an everyday occurrence that I started to wonder, “If the inspiration isn’t there and the muse is gone and I am not writing at a steady flow, can I still consider myself a writer?”

There are still those writers’ who are always inspired and the muse seems to always be there for them and that is a wonderful thing. But that alone is not the only thing makes a person a writer. A person can still be a writer even if it means them having to appoint a designated time to write and put together a schedule of the projects that they need to work on. Scheduling a time to write does not remove the artistic creativity in writing like so many people seem to think. I mean if you think about it, that makes more sense doesn’t it? A person who makes a living as a freelance writer can not simply wait to be inspired. They have to make a plan of action and follow through with it or they don’t make a living.

When I think of all of the time I have wasted waiting for some miraculous moment of inspiration to just jump up and hit me, I try not to think about the amount of novels I could’ve finished, or all of the magazines that I could’ve queried by now, or all of the many ideas I could have made come into fruition. What makes a writer is someone who puts tenacity and determination behind their drive to write and sitting in that chair behind that desk in front of that computer even though the words might not come that day.

Well if you are out there, sitting around and waiting for your muse and inspiration to suddenly strike like lightening, I am going to tell you that while you are waiting your ideas are going to waste. Your characters are going to stop speaking to you, and the stories that they are trying to tell you are disappearing and losing ground. While you are waiting, the ideas for those articles that you want to pitch to those prestigious magazines are being written by someone else who knew better then to wait. The screenplays that you are dreaming about writing are already being written by some other writer and you will no doubt be seeing them on the big screen wishing you had woken up out of your sleep and put those ideas down on paper.

It’s always nice when you can get inspired by something or someone and when you can find that perfect moment of uninterrupted inspiration. But how many novels could you have written while you were waiting for that moment? How many magazines could you have seen your articles placed in waiting for that one thing that inspires you to sit down and write? Shouldn’t seeing your name in print be inspiration enough? It is for me. Until next time….make every moment count, even the uninspired ones!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

In the Land of Writer’s Block

August 10, 2011 jcladyluv

For a long time I thought that writer’s block was simply a person being unable to write anything at all and unable to come up with ideas for things to write about. While that is an aspect of the term writer’s block. I didn’t think of the alternative which was that a person would be able to write, just not producing anything worth publishing.

For a few months now I have been able to come up with ideas, research projects, and even create details for my writing projects for when I get back to actually writing. The problem was that I wasn’t feeling motivated to actually write. It was simply a bad case of letting life’s road blocks get in my way and affect my inspiration.

Even as I am writing this and trying to get back into the swing of things I still feel somewhat blocked. I mean I am beginning to feel more motivated and inspired to write and I am actually able to produce some wonderful work worth sharing when I get ready but I still feel that in many ways I am not back to my old self, full of inspiration and letting the muse take me on it’s many journey’s. I still feel somewhat blocked.

I am not sure which one is worse, being blocked in a way of not being able to create anything whatsoever, or being blocked in the sense of I can produce work but have it not be worth showcasing or up to your own expected standard of work. I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that one once I figure it out. Well I’m off to trying to be more productive today. Until next time, be blessed!!!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://spokenlikeaqueen.wordpress.com/

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Write 2 Be Magazine…Coming in January!!!

August 3, 2011 jcladyluv

Okay I was going to try and come up with some profound and thought provoking blog post today but I am actually not feeling so blocked today and have been working on putting together the contents of my new project. I am creating a new online magazine called Write 2 Be. This magazine will be completely digital and available for free online only. There will be print versions quarterly for subscribers who choose to receive them. It will be designed to give writers and artists a broad platform to showcase their work and share their experiences in dealing with the ins and outs of both the creative and business side of writing and the publishing industry.

I am currently looking for writers who would like to showcase their work, be it fiction or informative articles, artists who would like to display their artwork, spoken word artists who would like to share video clips of their performances, and author’s who would like to be interviewed and who would like their books to be featured in the magazine. It is set to debut in January of 2012 and I am excited about what I feel it will bring and the knowledge that will be shared. Anyone who would like more details or to share in this new venture please send an e-mail to write2bemagazine@yahoo.com.

I am going to go ahead and get back to working on my new project before my motivation dies down and will provide further details at a later date. I will be writing again soon. Be blessed!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

Planting the Seeds of Motivation

August 1, 2011 jcladyluv

“A guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.’ What if they don’t show up? The best motivation is self-motivation.”

~Jim Rohn, US motivational speaker

I haven’t written anything here in a while and it was a break from writing that I hadn’t expected to take. Somehow I have been letting stress and worry, and a little bit of fear, get in the way of my love of writing and my motivation to progress within my writing career and continue moving steadily forward. I stalled. I sat at the computer and stared at blank pages with the pages taunting me with their white empty space. I tried for a while and I just couldn’t get inspired and the words just wouldn’t come.

Now the whole time I was unable to write was not completely wasted because I did do research on some projects that I have on my list to start working on but I still felt quite unproductive. Finally I realized that my stress and fear was increasing and that I couldn’t continue to toss my writing aside in hopes that the stress and fear would go away sooner rather than later. I started to actually research things like what to do for lack of motivation and how to get motivated again.

Guess what? There is not magical cure for writer’s block due to depression and that there is no one right answer of how to move past it. One piece of the same advice from many different successful and accomplished writers that stuck with me was that even when you don’t feel like writing, make a schedule and write anyway. So I wrote out a list for all of the projects that I want to work on and get done and then I mapped out the week and began to decide what projects to work on and on what days to work on them.

Now I don’t know if this is going to work and how well of a job I am going to do at sticking to the schedule that I set out to do but I do know that this blog post that I am writing at this very moment was the first thing of my schedule to do today and as you see I have completed that task. All I can do is take this one day at a time and hope that I do what I set out to do.

I guess I just always thought that it would be like it was when I was a little younger, where the words just flowed out of me and I had to actually stop myself from writing because otherwise I would’ve never slept. Inspiration and the motivation to write was never a problem. I hadn’t planned on life getting in the way and throwing me off my path.

Now I am learning that sometimes inspiration and motivation aren’t just going to show up and tap me on the shoulder and the words can’t always flow that easily. No matter what I still have to write because honestly I can’t see myself being happy doing anything else. I am planting my own seeds of motivation and now I am going to work on steadily moving forward because I can’t afford to take any more steps back.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”