Tag: focus

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If You Don’t Dream Big You Might As Well Not Dream At All

June 5, 2012 jcladyluv

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

~Lawrence J. Peter

I was reading a blog post by one of the bloggers I subscribe to today (Chersti Nieveen) about daring to dream. She spoke about a conversation she had with one of her critique friends about allowing yourself to believe whatever you want for five minutes, and then accept the reality of the situation. Basically allow yourself to dream big, as big as you wish, for five minutes, and then focus on what your reality is.

At first I was a little confused because it seemed like if you thought about everything you wanted for yourself and then you jolted yourself back to a reality that makes those dreams seem impossible then it would feel like a big let down. However, after thinking about her post for a while I think I realized what it was that she was trying to advise to her readers.

If you allow yourself to imagine all that you dream to have for your life, all the things that people will tell you are just not possible, and then tune back into the reality of where things stand, it can give you some focus on what needs to be done to make those visions you had for those five minutes become a reality.

When I took five minutes to think about what I dream of (to be honest I probably would need a little more than five minutes) it included many things but the main things are to sustain a living solely from my writing, to publish more novels, to have my articles start to appear in national magazines and newspapers, and to start my online magazine (Write 2 Be Magazine). Allowing myself to dream of the those things as if they were already in existence gave me a clearer focus on how to better go about attaining those things.

Sometimes I forget that it is okay to let myself think about the big bold dreams that I have for myself. The one’s that for so long seem so impossible to ever reach. It’s not crazy to think that you could actually make those dreams come true. It’s not that far fetched is it? After all, how can you ever really go after what it is you want without really admitting to yourself all of what it is that you want. Knowing where you want to end up only enables you to focus on the path you need to take 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

Smiling Through the Not Knowing of It All

June 4, 2012 jcladyluv

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.”

~Author Unknown

You ever have those days where you sit and think about all of the things that are just not going the way that you expected them to. Where you are not where you thought you would be and you’re tired of trying so damn hard because it all seems like it just might be for nothing.

Today wasn’t a bad day for me necessarily but I had a conversation with someone who was talking about how much they doubted themselves at what they’re purpose was at one point in time and how they finally decided to move out of their own way and get hustling even if no one else believed in them.

It’s the way I used to be and the way I would love to be again but I just had that slight feeling of ‘what’s the point’ after having that conversation. I believe in me but to this very minute I still feel like I’m the only one that seems to believe that I am good enough at what I do to ever make a decent living at it. Ordinarily there is nothing wrong with being the only one who believes that you’re good at what you do, for a while that is.

The only thing is that with being a writer, there has to be someone else that believes you’re good enough eventually if you ever want to make a living at it. I don’t just mean the one person here and the one person there that comes around so sporadically that you can’t really call that a decent living, I mean the steady stream of people that are willing to take a chance on the belief that you have in yourself.

Well when I have one of those days, where I just want to throw in the towel on it all and simply give up I try to listen to music that motivates me and gets me back in the right frame of mind again. One of the best songs for me to listen to when I feel like giving up is Kirk Franklin’s ‘Smile’ because the lyrics of the course are just what I need to hear.

I Smile. Even though I hurt see I smile

I know God is working so I smile

Even though I’ve been here for a while, I smile.

Smile. It’s so hard to look up when you’ve been down.

Sure would hate to see you give up now.

You look so much better when you smile, so smile.

How can you not smile after hearing such lyrics? How can you want to give up after hearing those lyrics? How could you not feel motivated to do what God put in motion for you to be doing? After hearing that song everything seems to be put back in focus again. My purpose seems to be back front and center, where it should have always been.

The fact is that I would not just be letting myself down if I was to toss my dreams aside, but more importantly I would be letting God down as well. I just have to remember that just because I am down right now, just because I am not where I want to be right now, doesn’t mean that God isn’t still working on me and my life. I guess I keep forgetting that I am not the only one who believes in me and my gifts, because God believed in me first.

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

There Can Be No Victory Without Having Something to Defeat

April 27, 2012 jcladyluv

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”

~Malcolm S. Forbes

This morning I read Ms. L.’s latest blog post and it got me thinking about how we tend to only want to talk about positive things and spare others from the bad (or at least from so much of the bad). I myself sometimes feel as if when I post I tend to zero in on the problems and that the positive spin that I try to put on certain struggles I deal with and doubts and fears that I have are just not positive enough.

In reading Ms. L.’s post it dawned on me that we all love when we hear the feel-good stories but I’m not sure that we realize that the reason we love them so much is because of the struggle that they come from. We like to hear about the things that people overcome and how hard people have to fight to get where it is that they want to be in life and we applaud the victory on the other side of their struggles. It gives us a sense of hope for our own situations.

We can’t always put a positive spin on things that happen in our lives. Sometimes we just have to tell it like it is and hope that others can take something positive away from whatever it is that we are going through. There are always lessons to be learned from the experiences that we go through and sometimes the silver lining just doesn’t show up until after the storm clouds are gone.

However, we still have to fight our way through the storm clouds, and not only that, we have to share our fight. We have to use our struggles to equip others with the necessary tools that they may not even realize they already have so they can weather the storms too. There are silver linings to everything, but Ms. L. is right when she points out that those silver linings don’t really mean much without the clouds that you had to go through 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

Time Is Ticking Away From Me

April 26, 2012 jcladyluv

“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.”

~Anthony J. D’Angelo

In my battle to become more productive in my writing I am struggling with the fact that I can’t cram more time to write in a single 24 hour day. I’m just not as young (in either actual age or spirit) as I used to be and I can’t even find a way to force myself to stay up all night like I used to.

I still go to bed relatively late (around 1 am) but even staying up that late doesn’t prove to make me more productive. When I was younger I would be up from the time I woke up early in the morning until almost the same hour the next morning, working on only one or two hours of sleep (if that). And when I was up, I don’t just mean awake and conscious, I mean alert, on the move, and with non-stop energy.

Now, even though I go to bed late it is no longer because I am able to bounce around with energy beyond my control and channel it into sitting in front of the computer to work on my novel (not that I don’t try). This is what I am battling to try and change. I am trying to be able to get more work done in the day so that I have some work to show for the time that is flying by faster than I can blink my eyes.

I would like to know whatever energy pill that all the famous, over-producing novelist’, and screenplay writers are taking and how I can get my hands on them. I suppose I just have to discover the key to actually getting the sleep I need and still getting a sufficient (and by sufficient I mean way more than the average person can get done in one day) amount of work accomplished in a normal 24 hour period. If anyone out there has figured it out please give me a hint to the magic solution.

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

What Do You Say On the Days You Don’t Know What To Say?

April 25, 2012 jcladyluv

I made a promise to myself that I would really focus on writing a blog post on a very regular basis. At first it was everyday but then I realized that I wanted my weekends to be about reading, or doing research, or marketing myself in some way. I still have work to do on the marketing part of that equation.

However, I won’t pretend like it is not a struggle to produce words that will be thought provoking and inspirational (hopefully you guys do consider them inspirational) on a consistent basis. Some days I really just don’t know what to say. Some days I go through the whole day and I don’t hear anything that inspires me or gives me an insight into what to write for you guys.

I tend to feel really inadequate as a writer on those days when I don’t know what to say. People have this misconception that writers know exactly the right things to say and sometimes we just don’t. Sometimes our minds are focused on whatever project we are working on and that is what consumes us. Today is one of those days for me.

I have thoughts of finishing my novel going through my head and where to go next with it. I have thoughts of the next novel project that can either be a Young Adult novel or an Adult fiction novel but I haven’t quite decided which way to take it just yet. I have a non-fiction book that I am trying to figure out what direction I want to go with it because it is a book that will be about my weight loss journey which is more about becoming a healthier and happier version of myself but it will also incorporate details of my childhood so it might actually border on something close to a memoir.

That is what has been on my mind all day and thus I couldn’t really come up with anything to say today. So I hope that you will understand my lack of inspiration in my blog post today but I did keep my promise I made to myself to continue posting on a daily basis. Maybe tomorrow I will know exactly what words to say.

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

I Know It Doesn’t Seem Like I Was Productive Today…

April 18, 2012 jcladyluv

Every day is not going to be the most productive day like I usually imagine it to be when I get out of bed in the morning. I imagine that after I take my daughter to school, go do my workout at the gym, come home to shower and get dressed that I would be ready to load myself with a cup (or two) of coffee and get straight to work. However, it does not always work out that way.

A part of me becoming more focused on my goals and turning my dreams into reality is to make sure that I am more productive everyday. Sometimes that calls for me to begin to realize that productivity does not just lie in the work that’s being done in a manner that can be always be seen.

Even if at the end of a day I don’t have a thousand words on my novel written, or I don’t write two or three query letters to be sent out, or I haven’t started that outline for the next novel that I was supposed to start the other day, or I don’t have the most prolific words for my blog post, it doesn’t mean that work is not being done.

A lot of times a writer’s work begins in their minds first. An idea formulates and is planned out in extensive detail within the walls of your mind and it takes life all before you even take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Research is also a big part of a writer’s world because that aspect of any project is extremely important and can not be avoided.

So on days like today, when I start to begin beating myself up for not having a finished query letter to send off, or for not being words closer to completing my novel, I have to remind myself that it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t productive. I do an enormous amount of my work in my head, and another large part is done in my research efforts. I can’t allow myself to feel like I’m not getting things done just because I don’t have a finished product. Some days my mind just needs to do the work within its walls and that’s okay.

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

Spring Cleaning for Creativity’s Sake

March 28, 2012 jcladyluv

Ms. L.’s post yesterday reminded me that it’s that time of year again. You know, the time when everyone starts to begin thinking about all of the spring cleaning they have to do. I am really big on getting into the whole spring cleaning vibe and going through and tossing out old clothes, doing a big clean up around the house that involves not only mopping all floors but also wiping down all surfaces until they are spotless, and tackling the re-organizing my tiny little corner of an office in my room. But spring cleaning should not stop after the household messes that we have been putting off for just such a time for mass clean-up are actually done.

For us creative types spring cleaning doesn’t just end at the household, but it transcends to spring cleaning your mind, your spirit, and your body, in an effort to spark your creativity and become even more productive. For me, there are three things that affect my creativity in a negative way; if my house is a mess, if my body isn’t feeling its best, and if my mind is cluttered with conflicting and contradicting thoughts.

I feel like it’s not just my house that I have to get in order (as far as cleaning), but that I need to amplify my efforts on maintaining good healthy habits (helps with the stress), and most of all I need to really get my head in the right frame of mind and focused on what’s important and what needs to be done. As you all know I am really concentrating on getting that fire back about my writing goals and making the things happen that I want to happen. Hopefully spring cleaning on all fronts will help me do that.

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

Reigniting an Old Flame

March 26, 2012 jcladyluv

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.”

~George Claude Lorimer

I listened to Ms. L. the other day as she talked about the series of articles that she just had published in her city’s local newspaper and the projects that she has coming up (let me add, paying projects), and how she is really starting to make some pretty good income with her writing just as she wanted to do with her business. Just as we both had hoped to do with our businesses. She is beginning to flourish and I am really proud of her. But honestly I am a tad bit jealous as well (but not in the bad way). It’s not that I don’t want her to succeed but I just wish that I was flourishing just as much as her, alongside her.

When I listen to her and hear her talk about her daily activities and just how productive she has been I see the same fire lit under her and the same drive inside of her that I used to have. She’s always on the go and pulling all-nighters and I can remember when I used to be the same way. My drive was so intense that I barely slept and I would skip meals just so that I could work on my writing. I have no idea when that fire in me started to die down. I didn’t mean for it to.

I know that I haven’t loss my passion for writing or for any of the things that I hope to do with my writing and my media company that I am currently trying to build up. I have a multitude of plans and my brain is constantly turning with more and more ideas by the hour, sometimes by the minute. But yet when it comes to actually executing those ideas and plans, after I’ve done all of the normal things that need to be done during my day, I sit down and the act of execution on those plans falls by the waist-side. I get tired and at times I accidentally fall asleep without ever tackling any of the things on my to-do list.

I don’t mean to be such a full blown procrastinator and I certainly don’t mean to have a head (and notebook) full of plans and ideas and never accomplishing even a tenth of them. I wish I had an explanation (at least a good one) for falling down on the job of making my dreams happen and I wish I understood why my drive and my fire isn’t naturally there the way it used to be, but I don’t. All I know is that this week I plan to get it together because I will only have myself to blame if I fail and no one else can make this happen for me.

I suppose I will just have to do what people do when they go to start their stove and they hear the clicking sound but yet the fire doesn’t immediately come on like it used to. They don’t just stop cooking their food, they go light a match or a lighter and get the fire started again themselves. I know that I still love what I do and I know I still have the passion for it and now I am just going to find a way to reignite the fire so that my dreams don’t burn out too. If any of you out there are feeling like the biggest procrastinator in the world, you are not alone and it does not have to stay that way. The flame can always be reignited, even if it has to be done manually.

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

Stepping Out on Faith and Sowing Seeds into Your Own Success

March 20, 2012March 20, 2012 jcladyluv

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. ²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. ²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” ²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹ “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” ³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

–Matthew 14: 22-33

I have so much trouble with investing in myself, in particular, in the business that I am trying to build up. It seems every time that I actually take the initiative and have the faith to go ahead and make an investment towards getting my business firmly off the ground, I turn around and face the almost immediate needs of my daughter. Now of course children need things all the time and I always make sure she’s taken care of first. However, it seems like just when I’m at a point where she appears to have everything she needs for the time being and I feel I can actually put money into myself (my writing career) then a sudden need arises and I start to feel guilty that I’ve just put this money into me and not into her where it clearly needed to go.

Now Ms. L. lectured me about feeling guilty last night and reminded me that taking care of me first sometimes is the best way to take care of her all the time but it doesn’t always feel that way. When I was in the gym this morning the guys were having a specific conversation that seemed to be perfect for the guilt (or possible lack of faith) that I was feeling. Oddly enough, I almost did not go to the gym this morning because it was raining and I had planned on using the rain as my excuse to stay home. But God had other plans and made sure that I went anyway.

They were talking about the story from the bible of when Jesus walked on water and he walked out to the boat with his disciples in it and Peter told Jesus that if it was in fact him to call him over to him, and he went and Peter was walking to Jesus on water. He was doing fine until he felt a gust of wind and a burst of fear and lost sight of Jesus and his faith in him and he began to sink into the water, drowing. He cried out for Jesus to save him and Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” If Peter had felt the wind and still had faith and kept his eyes on Jesus he would have been fine. If he had just kept his faith and had not doubted, not even for a second, he would not have felt the fear of drowning.

I feel that story not only applies to what I am dealing with, but also anyone out there who is struggling with their faith in what it is they are trying to do, what they may be called to do. If I were to stop taking my focus off of God and his plans for me, if I were to stop letting every little gusts of wind throw me off and make me afraid, I could only imagine how far I might be in my journey by now. I could imagine the voice of God in my head as he talks to me saying something to the effect of ‘If you would just have faith in what I have planned for you and follow through without getting afraid then you could be halfway there by now’. If he did say that, he would one hundred percent right.

I don’t always have a good track record of trusting in the unknown and the things that have no guarantees. It’s not that I don’t have faith in God and his plan for me, it’s that my nature to worry about all of the what ifs has a tendency to take me off the faith driven path (just a bit). It’s something that I struggle with and am constantly working on, not taking my eyes off of God and his plans for me, learning not to worry about all of the what ifs that pop into my head and knowing that God has never let me down yet and wouldn’t start now. I struggle with not having the comfort of knowing what’s waiting for me on the other side. The truth is that I have to realize that it’s not always for me to know, but for me to trust in the guidance of God and know that he would never steer me wrong.

Oftentimes we tend to get caught up in the worrying of it all that we forget to just let go and have some faith. Whatever is going to happen, whatever God is going to do, will be one anyway, whether it’s what we expected or not. We can’t be so riddled with doubt in ourselves and in his plans that we never even step out of the boat. We’ve got to have faith and know that God would not lead us on the water only to let us drown.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”