Month: September 2012

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

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

For the Love of Reading

September 25, 2012 jcladyluv

I forget to read sometimes. I’m not talking about reading the important books and articles on the craft of writing, or the blog posts from other writers about their successes and failures, or even books and articles about the business of being a writer. I’m talking about reading for the sheer enjoyment of reading and some of the genres that I am interested in writing in.

I was reminded when I read a blog posts by author Jody Hedlund today about the importance of reading, especially for a writer. She wrote about reading being an important tool in your writer’s toolkit because in order to be a good writer, in particular a fiction writer, you have to actually find the time to read just for your enjoyment. She also stressed the importance of not feeling guilty about taking time to read something that has absolutely nothing to do with researching whatever your next project is because reading in the end helps you learn other techniques of other writers and methods of storytelling that you might not have discovered before.

Reading her blog post made me think of just how many times I felt guilty for even reading a book that had nothing to do with what I was working on, or something to do with developing other techniques and skills that I need to as a writer. But I didn’t use to be that way. I used to always make sure I had a book in my hands, in fact there was a point in time where I would read two books at a time, one about my craft and one that I just wanted to read for enjoyment. I could breeze through a book in about two days and now I can barely get through a book in a couple of months.

I realized in reading Jody’s blog post that I shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to just block out a space of time to read. It was reading that made me fall in love with writing in the first place. It was reading that made me want to be a storyteller that captivated people with just my words. It was reading that allowed me to get lost in other people’s stories when I didn’t want to be in my own reality. I forgot how much I loved to read and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about just wanting to curl up with a good book and get lost in a reality that is not my own.

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

The Crutches That Keep Us From Healing

September 21, 2012September 21, 2012 jcladyluv

I broke my foot when I was 19 years old. I was attending MorganStateUniversity and it was during the winter when it had snowed and iced and as I was on my way to a class I slipped and fell and could not get up. I had to be taken to the hospital and once examined, I had my foot put in a cast and given crutches and told to use them everyday for the appropriate healing time or else my foot would not be able to heal itself properly.

For anyone who knows me, I am a hardheaded person who typically likes to formulate my own method of how things will wok better for me and needless to say I didn’t really use the crutches. I tried to use them but they never felt like they actually gave me the support that they were supposed to give and they became more of a hindrance than actually helping me. It would not be until years later that I realized that using those crutches properly as instructed would have saved me a lot of physical pain down the road.

To this day I have problems with my foot (especially when it rains) and I know that with any body part that gets broken you are going to have problems but I think because my foot didn’t heal properly, it gave me extra problems. We all have our own personal crutches in life. There are ones that we are supposed to use that we don’t, there are the one’s that we use when we don’t need them, and then there are the ones that we use far longer than necessary and then on top of it we don’t use them effectively enough so that when we no longer have the crutches we are ill prepared for the journey without them.

I have had a crutch for the last several years and it was one that was supposed to only be used to get me in a better position for what it is I really need to be doing. That crutch was supposed to allow me time to get myself ready for when I no longer had them anymore. I had been relying on that crutch for so long that not only had I not realized that I should have removed them a long time ago, but now because I didn’t use that crutch properly as they were supposed to be used, I am ill prepared for the journey without them. The crutch that was supposed to end up helping me has now become the thing that has hindered me the most and without it I feel as if my world is literally crashing in on me.

A week ago, I had so much school work with this Master’s program that seemed to be getting the better of me, and I was frustrated because not only did I not have the time to write (due to massive amounts of school work) but I also do not have the time to market and promote myself or query to bring the money in as a writer that I need to make. A week ago I also had a crutch that I knew would be there, until it wasn’t anymore.

So here I sit, with the crutches pulled out from under me abruptly, with no notice, and amazingly I am sitting here doing the research and working on querying, and thinking of the next project as well as how to complete the novel I am still working on so I can query that, and surprise of all surprises I can am still managing to get my homework done. I seemed to have suddenly made the time that I needed to have all along.

Now I’m not going to say that I am glad that the crutches were pulled out from underneath me without fair warning because I am not in a good place right now and at this moment I am not seeing how it is going to get any better as quickly as I need it to. I can say that without those crutches, I have suddenly jumped into action. I am getting things done even as I am typing this blog post that I thought I wasn’t able to make the time for.

I can see now that those crutches were not helping me like I thought after all. They were giving me an excuse not to take immediate action. They were feeding the fear that I already had about whether or not I can make this work. I thought that they were giving me a way to prepare when really they were keeping me from taking that giant leap of faith that I always thought I was taking.

Most crutches do help us heal from whatever it is that is broken. However, at some point we have to remember to remove those crutches when they are no longer needed because then all they are really doing is getting in the way. I took too long to remove mine, don’t wait until it’s too late to remove yours.

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

(P)interested In Improving What Isn’t Working

September 19, 2012 jcladyluv

I make no secret of not being heavily into the technology craze but I am not naïve to think that as a writer and someone who wants to become a very successful author and wordsmith that I don’t need to master the art of social media on some level. I have succumb to facebook, and twitter, and I even try to use linkedin to my best ability but I was not jumping to test out the latest social media obsession that is Pinterest.

Recent impounding struggles and events have forced me out of my comfort zone and into the mindset that I have to figure out how to master social media at a higher level because my current level is not really working for me. So in an effort to bump up my social media usage (for the sake of my online presence) and after reading an article in Writer’s Digest about how well Pinterest can really work for and benefit writers and help them to become even more visible in the virtual world, I began to look at more articles online about Pinterest and how it works.

The more I read the more intrigued I became and the more I started to realize that I might actually like using Pinterest. I get to create a visual representation of who I am and it could also help me present a visual storyboard of my novels as I create them to my intended readers. I get to put myself out there into the virtual world in a way that if my words don’t convey who I really am, the pictures will.

So I am now a new Pinterest user and although I only currently have 2 boards created, I have several more in mind already and I am actually excited to put my boards together. Now I still have a long way to go in learning how to make social media really work for me and I will most likely be kicking and screaming as I do it (lol) but now I feel like I finally have a piece of social media I can actually tolerate and even (heaven forbid) like.

Of course I have no way of knowing whether or not Pinterest will actually work for me the way it seems to be working for everyone else that I see using it but I am going to give it all the effort that I can give it and stay positive for a successful outcome. I hope you guys will check me out on Pinterest and anyone who is also on Pinterest, I would love to check you out as well.

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

When the Walls Have Crumbled, You Can’t Remain Underneath the Rubble (Can You?)

September 18, 2012 jcladyluv

Yesterday was the beginning of a very bad week for me. I won’t really get into the specifics but let’s just say I have never felt more like the walls are closing in on me than I do at this moment. As I thought my life couldn’t get any worse, it happened to actually get worse. My best friend was trying to keep me positive and remind me to still have hope but I have honestly never felt more hopeless than I do right now. It seems like nothing is working out the way that I wanted it to (the way I feel it should be working out) and everything that was giving me some semblance of hope is crumbling in over top of me.

But I still have to put on a smile for my daughter because no matter how much I feel that things are falling apart. I always tell her that how her day turns out has a lot to do with the way she trains her mind to think in the beginning of that day. That if you get up and have the conviction that it is going to be a positive day, then most likely it will be, and the same goes for the negative side of that coin. I found myself having to repeat that to her again last night and I found myself thinking (as I have many times before when giving advice to others) thinking that I really should learn to take my own advice to heart.

So we went skating last night and for a moment I forgot the horrible day that I had and the problems that were mounting against me. Of course I remembered when I came home and certainly it was on my mind when I woke up this morning but I tried my best to put my frame of mind in the positive column and not the negative. It helped that I managed to put some of my stress into my treadmill time this morning at the gym.

Today I can’t honestly say that I have had my hope restored and that I believe that everything is going to work out just fine. What I can say is that I was listening to my best friend Ms. L. last night when she told me to just focus on jumping into action to make everything better rather than sit around with the conviction that it’s never going to get better. I hate when she’s right but it happens so often that I am used to it by now.

That is what it means to have good supportive friends in your corner. When you are in that place where you have forgotten that the struggle is really worth your fight, it is good to have someone remind you that everything that you have been working hard towards is not for nothing. Just when you think the walls are crumbling all around you, it’s nice to have someone there who will help you to remove the rubble.

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

Even When the Bad Days Outweigh the Good

September 4, 2012 jcladyluv

So it’s not starting off being a good week and I am feeling almost completely defeated. But notice I said that I almost. The bad days that I’m having are really starting to overshadow any of the good one’s I manage to have. But I can not throw in the towel because that would be too easy. To let everything that I’ve been working towards and struggling to achieve fall by the waist-side all because I can’t see the finished product ahead of time would be quite possibly the biggest mistake that I could ever make.

I have a deadline for a goal I set at the beginning of this year and I haven’t spoken about it much lately because several times I have almost placed it on the back burner and wanted to just give up on the idea altogether but it is not in me to just give up. I said that I was going to launch the Write 2 Be Online Magazine in January of 2013 and that is what I am going to do.

I’ve been working on this magazine and putting it together little by little (both in my mind and on paper) and I have taken my time with it so that when I launch it I can be proud of it. This, for me, could be the start of things heading in the right direction (or at least a better direction then I’ve been heading) and I really want to honor what my heart and my gut is telling me to do. I just have to work really hard at not letting those bad days get the better of me.

I am still looking for contributors if anyone who reads this is interested and you can check back on this site under the Write 2 Be Magazine tab for periodic updated information.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”