Tag: AuthorTube

Challenges Can Push Us to a Place of Growth

jcladyluv

So as most of you guys know, I am a creature of habit (not all of the habits are good and healthy, but I digress) and I don’t particularly welcome change. Oddly enough I am also the same person who welcomes a challenge (within reason of course—I don’t do these popular social media ones)) and likes to see how far I can be pushed. Being a part of the AuthorTube community on YouTube (and if you haven’t checked out my channel, feel free to do so after reading this) there are a lot of challenges and ways they make sure to get their fellow writers motivated to be more productive. It’s almost impossible to not demand productivity of yourself when you are a part of a writing community that is just so extremely productive and they keep finding vastly different ways to produce.

So a new challenge has come up in the AuthorTube community by an AuthorTuber named Kate Cavanaugh called the MilWordy challenge and the goal is to write a million words over the next year, starting September 1, 2020. This includes all words, both fiction and non-fiction (or creative non-fiction), as well as blog posts and newsletters, poetry, and editing. So as daunting as this sounds, I have actually decided to dive right into this and I’m going to be honest and say that I don’t think that I will actually get to a million words, however, for me that is not the point. Largely what I have found within this community is accountability and ways to hold myself to a certain standard that even I myself am not sure that I can achieve.

The whole point is to try. I mean if I achieve even half of this goal then that is more than likely far more words than I would’ve gotten had I not done the challenge. But also, what if I actually complete this goal? How many projects would I have finished then? How many books will be set to be published? How many new projects that I was supposed to have started by now could I not only start but actually get started on and maybe even complete? I want to push myself and this is a good way to do that.

Challenges are good for that. They make us, at the very least, attempt the things that we have programmed ourselves to think are impossible. Challenges make us raise our own standards and stop expecting the bare minimum of what we have to offer this world. Challenges, both the ones that are thrown at us and the one’s in which we impose on ourselves, are what help us to grow as people.

What or who has challenged you on your journey? Have you resisted that challenge or did you allow yourself to lean in? I hope that any of you writers out there that read this perhaps click on the link in this post to Kate’s video and check out the details of the challenge or if not make your own challenge to see just how much you can achieve if you push yourself to. Let’s see how far we can get if we just pushed a little past what we expected of ourselves! Until next time… #BeBold #BeCourageous #BeMotivated  

 

Jimmetta Carpenter 

Writer/Editor 

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

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

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJCCarpenter

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv 

https://twitter.com/write2bemag 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

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A Proper Mental Health Break Day Can Help Keep the Burnout Away

jcladyluv

So I’m not known for knowing when to take a break. I typically push and push and push until I completely am exhausted of all creative, mental, and physical energy. I do this because I have moments when I get in such a bad funk or depression where nothing happens because I simply can’t and then I get frustrated with myself because I feel like I’m wasting so much time (as if it’s that easy to keep depression at bay). Last week was a little off for me because since this Pandemic started I’ve been on the go and more productive than I have been in recent months prior to it.

I’ve been writing more and doing more for my magazine, and even started a YouTube channel. I’ve got books that I’ve set in motion to be released before the end of the year (at least 4 of them) and there’s so much to do in preparation for this and that’s what I’ve been working towards. Even my weekends have been filled with writing related tasks (I used to have a no weekends thing so that’s big for me) and I have actually loved just how creatively inspired I’ve been and just on a constant need to be doing something to further the goal. Last week, however, I just didn’t feel like doing any of that. It wasn’t like my mind wasn’t still brimming with ideas and the need to keep pushing but it seemed the harder I tried to push through the more I felt like I just couldn’t do any of it. It wasn’t a depressed feeling because I know what that feels like.

I wasn’t sure what this was but then I attended the virtual writing retreat this weekend, Evergreen Writing Oasis, via YouTube and the first day of the event they talked about burnout (which is not the same as depression however one can feed into the other). I was beginning to feel burnout and that is not something that I can afford to have right now. In the event they spoke about ways to combat burnout, but also ways to maybe try and head the burnout off when you begin to recognize that’s what’s coming. This made me think of my own advice in one of my videos about filling the creative well and I had decided to go ahead and take the entire weekend and just enjoy the virtual writing retreat and just attend the panels, read, and watch TV.

I thought that would allow me to start this week off right and vibrant and refreshed and ready to hit the ground running. Yeah that’s not what happened because I’m still feeling a little blah and I still feel like I need to refill the well so to speak. So my initial thought was okay so this is going to be a week long thing and I’m just going to make this a mental health week and that may still be what it ends up being but for now I’m just going to play this by ear. So I did not make a schedule for this week (not yet anyway) and I have not yet written a to-do list (I plan on it though—I think) for the things that would need to be done this week. I have a novel outline to finish (for Camp NaNoWriMo) plus a novel and a motivational book to get prepped for release along with two poetry books but I don’t feel like I can produce my best work feeling like this.

All of this is to say that Mental Health breaks are very necessary and we (and by we I mean people in general) should not feel bad, or frustrated with ourselves for needing one. If we are not at our best mentally than how can we be the best version of ourselves that we need to be? I hope you guys don’t mind me working this out with you all and that I’m not rambling too much but I just felt like someone else out there needs to hear that it’s okay to take a break. It does not mean that you are lazy and it does not mean that you are unaware of the need to complete the task and accomplish the goal. It simply means that you are putting your mental health first for a few days, or however long you decide you need that mental break for. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. Until next time #BeMindful #BeAware #BeGoodtoYourself

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

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

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJCCarpenter

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv 

https://twitter.com/write2bemag 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

The Why Isn’t Always Our Business

jcladyluv

In figuring out what your purpose is, what God wants you to do with the time that HE has given you here on this earth, sometimes it’s hard to know the reasons why. Not necessarily why HE gave you the overall purpose, but in terms of the steps that HE guides you through along the way in order to reach the overall goal, you tend to wonder why this step.

I discovered the Author Tube Community on YouTube a little more than a year and a half ago but I wasn’t really sure it was something that I was going to entertain being a part of. I watched other people’s channels and I loved watching how they navigated their writing careers and how their writing routines made them more productive and of course the writing advice they had to give but it was never going to go past me just watching a few channels here and there. At least that’s what I thought anyway.

I kept feeling pulled to that Author Tube community and since I didn’t really have a solid group of writer friends to interact with (just one or two people spread out) it seemed like a good way to get that fix I needed for having a sense of writing camaraderie with others. Even then, I had no plans on actually making a channel and putting videos up there, even though I had been told countless times before I discovered this authortube that I should for other creative purposes. I just wanted to watch, comment here and there, gain some knowledge and perspectives other than my own, and that was that.

Now I know this is going to sound weird but I truly felt like God was telling me that I needed to start an AuthorTube channel of my own, that I needed to put in some real effort towards the inevitable goal to making this a part of my platform. I didn’t understand it. After all, doesn’t God know that I have stage fright and how uncomfortable I am in front of people, even if they’re not physically there in front of me? Doesn’t God know that I break out in a panic just being behind a camera and knowing that someone somewhere is going to see this? I kept wondering why God would want me to embarrass myself on camera like that (because I stumble on my words when I’m nervous) and how that could possibly lead me to my purpose.

Well if I can remind you all here, for those who have been reading my blog for a while, that one of my main goals that I plan to do in the future is to develop an anti-bullying program, that of course will encompass a series of children’s and middle grade books centered on the topic and will also involve public presentations and seminars. That means some way or another I was going to have to end up getting comfortable speaking in public right? Okay so back to starting up this YouTube channel that I was extremely resistant to doing. I kept being led to do it and it sounds silly because it’s a YouTube channel right so why would God have that specific plan for me.

As I was telling a friend of mine the other day, I’m not saying that it was specifically about the YouTube channel per say, but rather it was about getting past those fears of being on camera, those panicky emotions about having people see and hear me and dreading the results. I think it was about the fact that God was trying to figure out how HE was going to start moving me in the direction to possibly speak in public if I couldn’t even manage to get around speaking on camera, with no one actually in front of me, just the knowledge of the fact that people would see it. So I was finally obedient and I did it and I’ve been on there for a little over a month now and my channel is growing, slowly, but it is growing and oddly enough, while I thought no one would actually care what I had to say, there are people there that really like my channel. I’ve even recently been placed on a couple of different authortubers list highlighting smaller channels that people should watch and I was delighted.

In just such a short time I am really starting to feel my confidence growing in getting behind the camera and while the panic is still there at times, it’s not quite as debilitating as it was that very first time I sat down to film. It’s done so much for me and my growing ease at speaking on camera already and I am grateful. I am thankful that I stopped asking God why HE wanted me to do something and instead I just did it.

Sometimes we just have to stop asking a whole bunch of questions that we’re really not ever going to know that answers to until we actually complete what was asked of us. It’s not our business to always know the why of it all. If you are being guided by God to do something (make sure it’s really by God first) don’t put your energy into a million and one questions, just do it. He asks that we trust in his guidance and have faith that he would never steer us wrong so just trust that the one who has given you your purpose is the best one to show you the way. Until next time… #BeOpen #BeWilling #BeinFaith

 

Jimmetta Carpenter 

Writer/Editor 

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

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

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJCCarpenter

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv 

https://twitter.com/write2bemag 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

One Giant Step Forward (For Me Anyway)

jcladyluv

I did something new you guys! I wrote last week about stepping outside of my comfort zone and how there were some things that I had been putting off doing because I was always waiting for the right (or perfect) time. I wrote about realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect time and in fact there’s just no such thing as a perfect anything so I just had to take a leap and put myself out there.

Well one of those things was starting my YouTube channel within the Author Tube community (a community mostly for writers wanting to get better at writing and surround themselves with other writer friends). I have been unofficially a part of the Author Tube community for a little over a year now, just watching the others videos and commenting when I had something to say or wanted to communicate how much someone’s video inspired me and I knew that I wanted to officially be one with the other Author Tubers by actually putting my own out there but I first had to get around my inherent anxiety and overwhelming fear about being on camera and the doubt that anyone will care about what I had to say.

I had shot some video footage for my first couple of videos and then went back to shoot an intro video and uploaded the videos and taught myself some basic video editing skills and had the videos uploaded and just sitting there waiting to be made public. I had to let them sit there to once again get over the nerves of really putting myself out there for the world to see and I finally did it. I finally hit the public button in my YouTube studio on late Friday night for the intro video and Saturday night for the officially Author Tube newbie tag video.

It’s official now! I am an Author Tuber and there’s no going back now! So join me over on my YouTube channel if you want to join me on my journey to self-publishing my books (I have a couple coming out in the next two months) and learn a little more about the author side of me and my writing process. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and leave a comment there or here and let me know what you think. Until next time #BeConfident #BeBold #BeVulnerable

 

Jimmetta Carpenter 

Writer/Editor 

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

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

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv 

https://twitter.com/write2bemag