Author: jcladyluv

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”

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

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

Quitters Will Never Win

August 28, 2012 jcladyluv

As I was sitting here thinking about what to write today I was thinking about just throwing in the towel. You know you can only keep trying at something for so long that doesn’t appear to be working before you start to really wonder if it’s just not going to work, or maybe it’s just not meant to be. Lately I’ve been feeling as if every time I take one step forward, I end up getting knocked two steps backward. I was beginning to feel like all of this was pointless and that all this dreaming that I’ve been doing had been for nothing.

Just as I was getting ready to give up and just say to hell with it I looked in my email inbox today and received one of my Tyler Perry mailing list pep talks (it was actually sent a couple of days ago but I hadn’t checked my email in a couple of days). His message was short, sweet, and to the point. Simply put it read “IF YOU QUIT OR GIVE UP THEN YOU DON’T DESERVE IT! Process that and get back in the fight, DREAMER! You can do it.” As I said before, time and time again, Tyler Perry always has a way of sending out his inspirational messages just as I need to hear it.

I love writing and most importantly I am meant to do this. I know it deep down inside my gut. Even when I doubt myself, I never doubt my ability to write. Even though I keep getting knocked down repeatedly, I have just been reminded that I can’t throw in the towel because if I do I never deserved it in the first place. I have never been one to quit anything that I really wanted and that I knew was for me. I’m not going to start now!

If any of you are out there feeling like it’s just never going to come together, don’t stop now, don’t give up the fight. Just when you think it’s time to quit is the precise moment that you need to keep holding on.

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

Time Is Of the Essence

August 20, 2012 jcladyluv

I’ve found myself saying to quite a lot of people lately that they shouldn’t wait to do whatever they said they were going to do the next time they get a chance. That they should take the opportunity to do whatever it is now, in that moment. Simply put, I have been reminding people that tomorrow is never promised and that you shouldn’t keep waiting for the next available moment when the moment has presented itself right now.

Isn’t it funny how we can impart wisdom and advice to other people, probably advice that was at some other time imparted to us, but we can never really seem to take that advice ourselves? I was telling Ms. L. today about how every time I make a plan to really buckle down and get things done I find myself at that moment, with all of my tools lined up around me ready for me to get stuff done and then either something gets me distracted or I simply fall asleep from being so tired. Hours later I end up with just as much done as I had before which is nothing.

I can’t keep repeating this same cycle of having a whole lot of plans to do something and ending up with very little to nothing actually being done. Is anyone else in a cycle of repeated procrastination or is it really just me? I only hope that I somehow learn to take my own advice (and advice given to me by others in the past) before time really does get away from me and it becomes too late to do anything about it.

As much as people would like to believe that it is never too late to do the things that you were meant to do, everyone’s time is up at some point. If I leave this earth without making a good enough use of the gifts and talents that God gave me and without fulfilling the purpose that he placed before me, then I really will have wasted all of the valuable time that I was given and I will have nothing to show for it.

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 First Time Around

August 14, 2012 jcladyluv

Ever wonder what might have been different if all of the opportunities that you have been given, you had got it right the first time around? If you had the money to do everything that you need and want to do to become successful would you actually be doing them right now instead of just wishing you could be doing them?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that I need to do to get things going the way that I need them to be going and how the lack of money has held me up from actually following through with a lot of those things. I’ve also been thinking about all of the opportunities that I have had that could have enabled me to be in a different place right now that I have just somehow squandered away. What kind of difference would it make if I had got it all right the first time around?

If I had finished college the first time I went and completed my degrees then, instead having to work extra hard to try and finish them up now, so late in the game, then I might already be working in the media industry now as I have always dreamed of. I might have already moved to New York like I wanted to all those years ago so that I can be surrounded by exactly the right people I need to be surrounded by. I could have all the right contacts and connections and I would already have my foot in the door that I am trying hard to kick down now.

I could have learned from the best how to be the best and already be halfway up the ladder by now instead of still being on the second or third rung. I probably would already be on some New York Time’s best sellers list and I probably would have already had about three or four novels out by now because I would not have had any other responsibilities to worry about other then myself and my work. I could have already achieved so much by now if I had only done things right the first time around.

Money would most likely not be an issue (being a New York Time’s best seller and all and working as an editor for a publishing company while freelancing for some of the most prestigious magazines that are housed in New York) so I would not have any problem trying to get my own media empire started because with only myself as a responsibility and my work of course, I could put away money towards that empire and the things that I need to do for it. Life could be so different right now.

But the catch to all of that what if stuff is that if all of that had transpired (so-called) right the first time around, then I wouldn’t have met my daughter’s father and I wouldn’t have my wonderful, beautiful, and intelligent daughter who I would not trade for any amount of money, success, or fame. She is the reason that I get up in the morning and I really have a hard time trying to ever envision my life without her in it. She makes me want to fight harder to get things back on track and to make sure that she never gets off track. But also she is proof to me that sometimes what you think would have turned out better if it had been done right the first time around, might not actually be the case.

I don’t even know if all of that would have come to be without her coming along in my life, but I do know that the possibility is not lost. I also know that she has enriched my life in ways that I think make me a better writer and a better person. We can always wonder what would be different if we had another attempt at doing things all over again but when you really think about it, perhaps what you considered to be right in the first place was all wrong for you. Perhaps for our second shot at things, rather then wishing we could go back and do things differently we should treat our new opportunities as if they are what’s right for us now. Let’s try not looking back at a past we can’t change, but instead looking forward to a future that was meant to be.

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

Riding Around On a Near Empty Tank

August 10, 2012 jcladyluv

I was reading an article on the Freelance Writer’s Den website that is supposed to help struggling freelance writers figure out how to better market themselves and their business. There are a total of 21 marketing tips and I have decided to take one at a time and kind of marinate on them and really take them in and process them. The first one is of course that you have to believe in your product, in this case, me.

It commented on the obvious fears that freelance writers, or writers in general, experience as they try to build their business and get them off the ground good, especially the one’s that are struggling to even get the wheels of the plane up. It gave a couple of suggestions about how to fill up your positive-feelings tank and I thought that was a good and interesting way to look at it.

If my confidence this week were a gas tank I would be really close to empty right now and I have to work on filling that tank up and keeping it damn near full all the time (if not always full). The list that the article gave on how to re-build your confidence and positive feelings about yourself included many things but the things that stuck out to me were to avoid negative and toxic people and surround yourself with people who think you are great, flipping through your portfolio of work to remind yourself how good you are, and to list your strengths as a writer.

Now I am working on making sure I surround myself with positive energy and people that exude that, and I have occasionally flipped through my portfolio of work and was astonished at some of the things that I have produced, but one thing that I have never done is make a list of my strengths as a writer and as a person. Perhaps I will try that this weekend and perhaps that will help to fill my positive-feelings tank (or as I like to refer to it as my confidence tank) up to its highest capacity.

It’s not that I don’t believe that I am a good writer (most of the time) and that I was meant to communicate with my words. It’s that I worry way too much about whether everyone else will agree and my confidence as far as other people finding my writing great is wavering, a lot. I still haven’t worked through all of my fears but I know that I’m going to get there.

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

Is a Writer’s Desk Ever Really Free of Clutter?

August 9, 2012 jcladyluv

It’s about that time for the re-organization fairy to come in and clean my office area again. Okay no really it seems like it needs to be done every three or four months and I don’t know about anyone else but it is hard to work in clutter, especially when it is clutter of your own making.

My clutter comes from piling the incoming mail into my little inbox trays and letting it all stack up each and every week without ever tossing any of the junk that needs to be trashed out. It also comes from trying to work on more than a few projects at one time so therefore everything in reference to each project, research, outlines and things of that nature, end up in a pile to the side of my desk and it starts to look a little bit similar to the mail file, accept none of it is junk.

It is time for me to get my desk back in the order that I would like it to be in and this time devise a plan for it to stay that way. But am I kidding myself to think that my desk can ever really remain clean and orderly? Perhaps a writer’s desk is never truly clean of all clutter but when it starts to hinder the progress that you are making (or rather not making) then it becomes a problem.

It’s so distracting that I have not even really done work at my desk for the last few weeks. I’ve simply gathered up my laptop, and my notepad and notes on certain projects and toted them out to my dining room table, which is nice and clean, and I work there but I am really starting to miss my desk.

I miss my chair (well currently it’s broke thanks to my daughter hopping in and out of it like it’s a bean-bag chair) and more importantly I miss feeling like a successful writer/business woman working in her own office (area). That’s what working at my desk does for me. I’ve seen pictures of writers working happily in a cluttered space and they genuinely look happy and at peace with the mess. I just don’t know how they do it. I suppose I should be happy that I’ve been doing a good job of working on my novel for Camp NaNoWriMo so I can’t say that the dining room table is a bad fix but, I miss my desk.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”