Author: jcladyluv

Jimmetta Carpenter was born and raised in the Prince George’s County Maryland and has had a very big imagination since a very early age. Her love of words has allowed her to express herself in ways in which verbally she can not. She is a freelance writer, blogger, and the author of a collection of poetry, The Art of Love under the Pseudonym Gemini and is currently working on several novels.

The Importance of Finishing

jcladyluv

“Winning isn’t always finishing first.  Sometimes winning is just finishing.”

~Manuel Diotte 

Earlier today I was reflecting on how good I felt about completing National Novel Writing Month yesterday (50,002 words) and I began to think about the fact that if I finished everything as strong and with as much determination and staying power as I did those 50,000 words I might be further along in my journey to being successful.  Looking at my list of what I was supposed to accomplish in this entire year I ran over the things I started and just didn’t finish.  For whatever reason, be it frustration of it not working fast enough (I admit I need to work on my patience), or just pure self-doubt that I wasn’t good enough to have the success I was trying to carve out.  There is something to be said for finishing what you start and not giving up halfway through the mission.  

I was listening to the news earlier this morning and they were discussing the whole Herman Cain controversy and there were claims that he was “reassessing” his campaign, which of course people automatically took as him contemplating dropping out of the race.  Now before I say this I want to make it clear that I am not a Herman Cain fan, neither of his politics nor how he chooses to govern his personal life, however, having said that, if he is in fact considering dropping out of the race, I do NOT think that he should.  Yes he is struggling right now on so many fronts but no person is perfect and the person running for the President of theUnited Statesis not going to be an exception.  He started something, and I believe that he should finish what he started.  If he doesn’t I am almost certain he will forever wonder what would have been and what could have been if he had just finished. 

Now no one likes to lose or have that feeling of defeat.  But isn’t it defeat if you have a continuous pattern of starting these grand missions and then never finishing them and seeing them through?  I have a notebook full of a lot of things that I got really excited about and jotted down all of these notes and ideas for projects and how I was going to put those ideas and plans into action and then I would hit a snag and it would seem impossible to envision me being able to complete that project.  I got it in my head that because I hit that snag, there was no use wasting time on an idea that could never really go anywhere.  I just wouldn’t finish.  

When I look back on several moments of my life that is where the majority of my mistakes have been.  That I didn’t finish.  Here’s what I’ve learned from all of those unfinished mistakes.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve started something if it never gets completed and put into action.  Even if you finish and find it not to be a success, at least you’ve finished.  This month I will be making my lists for what I want to accomplish next year.  I can tell you that no matter what, I intend to finish whatever it is I start from now on.  No more unfinished business for me. 

Until next time…Always, Always, Always, finish! 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 30: Just In Time

jcladyluv

Okay I was really beginning to doubt whether I could make it.  But I DID IT!  50,002 words.  I completed this year’s National Novel Writing Month successfully.  And let me tell you I think this might have been the hardest day of the whole month.  The feeling of not being sure whether I was going to finish or not was lingering over my head.  With all of the other characters that were beginning to tell me of what the next book in the series should be about I could hardly concentrate. 

Well as most of you writers out there, a novel consists of way more than 50,000 words so as you might imagine my novel is not actually finished so I still have the personal challenge of finishing this novel.  But that won’t be hard because I am so excited to finish and so excited to see where this book will end because I had an ending all planned out in my outline but as so much of this story has gone off the course of the outline, so to will my ending.  I have already seen the vision of the new ending in my head and by time I get to the end that might change as well.  Well I am going to bed now to rest my fingers and my mind so that I can come back to the keyboard tomorrow but this time I won’t have the added pressure.  Well I take that back because I have a new online Magazine to finish putting together for its release in January.  Goodnight all you writers out there.  I hope you were successful as well and if not, trying is half of the battle and it is better to have tried then to never have tried at all.  Until tomorrow! 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 29: I Can See The Finish Line

jcladyluv

Still typing away.  I think I’m over 45,000 words now.  Not too sure because I am still writing.  I just wanted to take a break to post this and then it’s back to the writing for maybe another hour.  My fingers hurt and are starting to cramp up a little bit but it will be worth it when I can say I Did It!.   For now I will leave you with these inspiring words that I can really relate to write now.  Until tomorrow! 

“The characters who come to life on the page or on the stage are the ones that have passed through the storyteller’s imagination.  Your readers already ‘know’ people as well as real people ever know each other.  They turn to fiction in order to know people better than they can ever know them in real life.” 

~Orson Scott Card 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 28: Almost There

jcladyluv

Still pounding away at the keyboard to get to those 50,000 words.  I’m a little over 40,000 now but I’m not quite in the home stretch yet.  Didn’t want to let the day go by without posting something that will hopefully inspire the rest of my fellow writers out there to keep pressing forward.  

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework…you can be writing, because you have that space.” 

~Joyce Carol Oates

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 27: I Feel So Far Behind

jcladyluv

I am working really hard to get to those 50,000 words before the 30th which, believe it or not, is only 3 full days away.  I am still behind in my word count so I am getting worried that I might not be able to finish.  I hope I make it, cross your fingers! 

“Every time I start on a new book, I am a beginner again.  I doubt myself, I grow discouraged, all the work accomplished in the past is as though it never was, my first drafts are so shapeless that it seems impossible to go on with the attempt at all, all right up until the moment…when it has become impossible not to finish it.” 

– Simone De Beauvoir 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 26: In My Own World of Writing

jcladyluv

Okay technically it is aftermidnightbut for me until I have gone to sleep and woke up again it is still day 26.  I have gotten lots of work done today, despite the procrastination I powered through earlier.  I just wanted to leave you with this quote and then my day is done. 

“My closely guarded solitude causes some hurt feelings now and then.  But how to explain, without wounding someone, that you want to be wholly in the world you are writing about, that it would take two days to get the visitor’s voice out of the house so that you could listen to your own characters again?”

 – Margaret Bourke-White; Portrait of Myself

 

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

 

 

 

NaNoWriMo Day 25: Just a Short Note

jcladyluv

This weekend I will be consuming myself with nothing but writing because I have unfortunately slacked off on my word count over the last few days.  I will be thinking about nothing but my story and Mackenzie Brown and stopping to do nothing but maybe eat every once and a while.  So if I do not check back in here tomorrow (which I’m pretty sure I will) that is what I am doing.  I have to make it to that 50,000 and I don’t have much longer.  So goodnight all my fellow Nano-ers and I hope your novels are going well.  Until next time…Write, Write, Write! 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 24: The Season for Preparation Begins

jcladyluv

Today reminds me that we are getting closer to a new year, with new plans, new goals, and new projects that we will be working on.  I have to take a look at my goals that I had for this year and look at just how many I didn’t get accomplished and see which ones I think I might actually be able to achieve next year and which one’s are just out of my reach (at least for next year).  I really should start a short term and long term goal list and then I might feel a little more accomplished come this time next year.  I don’t know if I have told you guys but I am an extremely overly ambitious person, sometimes to my own detriment.  Usually as Christmas approaches I sit down and begin making a list of my goals, the projects I want to get done, and the books I want to read for the next year.  While my friends who do this same thing have short, attainable lists, my lists look like the goals of about two or three people put together.  My challenge when I make my list this year is to make my lists something that I can feasibly accomplish.  My list has to be something that meets my ambitions, but does not exceed my own reality.  It needs to be a list that when I go back and look at it at the end of the year I’m not going to feel like I am an absolute failure because I didn’t even get half of a ridiculously long list done.  So as Thanksgiving moves out and the Christmas season officially begins, so does the preparations for the year to come.  Until next time…What are your goals for next year going to look like? 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 23: Working Holiday

jcladyluv

I know tomorrow is Thanksgiving so first I just want to wish all my readers a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope that everyone enjoys their family and friends and treasures them dearly.  I am not that big of a fan of the Thanksgiving holiday because I don’t really have a big family and the family I do have is not big on holidays and the handful of friends that I do have either don’t like holidays either or they are too spread out all over the place for me to be able to enjoy them.  Now don’t get me wrong I would probably be very much a holiday person if I actually had people to enjoy it with other than my wonderful daughter.  However, this is the time of year where I become incredibly lonely and a little depressed.  Tomorrow is especially going to be hard because my daughter is going to spend Thanksgiving Day with her father’s family and I will be here alone (my first one without her).  So my plan to make it through the day (without bursting into tears) is to write and catch up on my word count, map out my social media marketing plans for several of my projects, and try to squeeze in getting the house decorated for Christmas.  So tomorrow will be a day of productivity (I hope) and hopefully, by the end of the day, I will at least be thankful for the work I was able to accomplish throughout the day.  I hope that all of you have a wonderful day tomorrow and for my fellow Nano-ers, don’t forget that it is still November and National Novel Writing Month is still in effect.  Until next time…Enjoy all of your blessings and don’t take them for granted. 

 

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

NaNoWriMo Day 22: Rainy Days

jcladyluv

Rainy days always make me feel a little sad and lazy.  Today was a rainy day and unfortunately I did succumb to the feeling of laziness and a touch of sadness (mainly for my character Mackenzie who is going through something right now).  However, while it may be late, I have decided to show up.  This post may be coming later than I would have normally posted it but I did show up to write it.  I also did not write this morning but I plan on showing up tonight to sit down and write.  I meant what I wrote yesterday about deciding to show up and I plan to hold myself to it.  Granted I would have liked to have a whole day of work to show that I showed up but some is better than none and while I showed up late, it is better late than never.  Tomorrow is another day and I already have it mapped out in my head what I need to do and work on to be productive.  I am almost at 50,000 words (a little over 32,000) and I plan to be able to say I succeeded come November 30th.  I hope all of my fellow writers out there who are participating in this challenge are doing well in their novels.  I’ve got to go now, Mackenzie is getting closer to the person who killed the Congressman.  Until next time…Don’t let the rainy days hold you back. 

 

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