Tag: goals

To the Beat of My Own Drum

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To the beat of my own drum

Back in High School I had so many things going on at home outside of school that made me feel unworthy that I really didn’t need the extra negativity at school. I was never the most popular person in school. For some reason or another I was always disliked by those who others would consider the ones to follow. You know those in crowd clicks, if they didn’t like you then pretty much no one else did. But I was fine with my small circle of friends because they were there when everything at home was crazy. To be honest I cared far too much what others thought of me back then.

I can’t say that I don’t still, to some small (and I mean very small) degree care what certain people think of me but for the most part, now I just don’t give a damn. I have learned in trying to please everyone at the same time that you just can’t and you end up being displeased with yourself. If people are going to choose not to like you then they will find ANY reason not to. In thinking about where I am trying to get to in life, the most successful people are not necessarily the most liked people. They typically stand for something that others may or may not understand.

I feel sometimes like I can’t really win because if I don’t state where I stand on something then I am being anti-social and not giving enough input but when I give input and it’s not going along with what is being said across the board or just not what others want to hear then I am being difficult and bringing negativity. It can never just be that I have a voice of my own that just doesn’t agree with yours. It can never just be that my opinion is respected and left at that. But if I stopped to care, or broke down over, every single person that found fault in me for one reason or another, then I would never make it down this path towards my goals that I am on.

Everyone is not going to agree with you, like you, love you, or even respect you. But what matters is how you feel about yourself and how you represent yourself to others. I’m a person that’s not going to cave just because you want me to. If I feel a certain way then that’s just how I feel and if that in someone else’s eyes makes me problematic or negative then I can’t change the opinion that they may have. I for one think that it means that I don’t waver on what I stand for, I don’t bend to everyone’s will, and I most certainly don’t follow with the rest of the crowd.

I am my own person, I have my own voice, and because of that I will get to my destination because I won’t be caught up with trying to please the general public. You just can’t please everyone. But it’s a good thing that the only thing that I am here for is to serve the purpose that God has for me and to reach the destination that he has already pre-destined for me. I’m going to get to where I am going and those who are my true supporters, who truly are for me and not against me, will still be there while everyone else falls by the waste-side. So today I hope you are not neglecting you own voice to satisfy others and I hope that you don’t forget just how important your voice is, even if it does stand out from everyone else’s. Stay blessed and stay true to what you have to say!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

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Showing Up Can Be the Difference from Standing Still and Moving Forward

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show up

The most important thing you can do as a writer, as an artist, or just as an entrepreneur in general is show up. Speaking from the standpoint of a writer who has made this her business, just sitting down in preparation to write something or promote what it is you are working on is showing up and is in some way (even if it’s in baby steps) moving your business and career forward.

I’m hard on myself sometimes, for essentially no reason, because I may sit down and the words may not even come for me to put together a blog post (as in yesterday) and I may not write (or type) one single word on the current project I may be working on but completely look over the fact that I did some social media promotion (as much as I can do anyway) or that I read my book or a writing magazine to fuel my creativity. I somehow discount those things when I should be celebrating those things for what they are which is progress.

Progress may not happen all at once like we so often want it to but typically the things that we want most, that matter the most, are not going to be easy to come by and they most certainly are not going to come all at once. Progress, in any form, no matter how little, should be acknowledged. I wrote a post a while ago about the fact that I felt like I was slacking in my reading and as most of you writers know, reading is a huge part of writing. I felt like I wasn’t measuring up in that department and I wasn’t being fueled creatively in that area.

Since then I have made time, in fact, I have gone so far as to include reading on my to do list for the day because I realized that if I didn’t put it on my list I might never get to it. I’ve not only been reading my fiction book that I am nearing the end of but I even have been reading some things on my craft. Just that little bit of progress has made me open up a little more in my creativity and I’m not going to discount that because it wasn’t actual writing that was being done.

I say all of this to say, celebrate the progress that you make in your daily endeavors and not just the big moments but the little ones as well. Don’t count out the baby steps that you are making. They may feel like you’ve only moved an inch closer to your goals, but keep in mind that it was an inch of ground that you hadn’t covered the day before. So stay persistent and keep making progress. You will get there and it may be in slower fashion than you would like it to be but if you remember, slow and steady wins the race. Be blessed and keep moving forward!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

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I Write Outside the Box That People Keep Trying to Put Me In

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Outside the box

I like to read author interviews, doesn’t really matter whether it’s an author who is already bestseller famous or one that is just publishing their first novel (although I tend to like the first timer interviews the best).  I love when the person doing the interview poses the question of what type of writer they consider themselves because I always like to see if their answer would be anything like mine would be.  Some are but a lot of writers tend to stick to the same type of book, or rather the same genre.

I once had someone tell me that I needed to write urban fiction (or street lit) because that is what is selling in the African American community.  My response to that was that’s not my type of writing.  I don’t write for one specific race, or cultural community, I write for everyone, but mostly I write for me.  The funny thing is that thinking back, when I set out to be a writer, I mean really got into the idea of wanting to write novels and not just poetry and stories, I knew that I did not just want to stick to one genre or style of writing.

I know that a lot of some of the greats did that, they were known for one genre type or another, but I never wanted to be predictable.  I wanted to surprise my readers and my fans and I didn’t want them to be able to predict what type of book I would come out with next.  When I had my first novel published (in which I plan on re-releasing soon) there were some people who said “oh this is the type of book that white people read” and that was just off of reading the back of the book, before even opening to the first page.  I responded with the fact that I hope that it’s the type of book that EVERYONE reads.

I write the type of things I myself would like to read, and although I’m not going to deny that I have read urban fiction in the past, those are just not the kind of books I like to read.  My first novel was considered contemporary fiction, and my second may be as well, but I know I have a mystery that’s going to come out as well, a self-help book for writers (which will start come out as an ebook series first), and a historical fiction novel soon to come as well.  I also still write poetry and have a huge collection of poetry that I will release as separate books soon, a children’s (mid-grade) series that I want to write, as well as I’ve been recently inspired to write some paranormal fiction but that is still up in the air.

I’m not just a one genre writer, and I don’t say that to say that there is anything wrong with those that are, but I don’t like people placing labels of what I should be writing on me either.  Just because I am African American I am supposed to write this urban literature which is an insult really because it implies that it’s all that African American’s can write and I know that’s not true.  I want to write for everyone and I want my messages in my articles or my novels, or my poetry, to reach everyone because that’s what it’s about for me.

Sure if I was solely in it for the money then I guess I would write whatever is popular but then I’m not being true to myself and then readers are liking an image that is made up, not the real me.  So if you are feeling pressured to write something that is simply not you, don’t fall into that trap.  You have to stay true to yourself because while it may take a little while longer to get to your destination this way, you can bet that you will certainly stay at the top longer by doing so.  Stay blessed and don’t be afraid to write outside of the box!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Challenging Your Own Limitations

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Doesn't challenge doesn't change

I like challenging myself to doing things that I think that I can’t do.  Even if I am almost guaranteed that I will end up disappointed at the end of it all, I still like doing it.  I don’t know if that makes me a gluten for punishment or a naïve eternal optimist.  Whichever one it makes me, I think that in the end I am all the better for the challenges.  Either I fail and learn what I did wrong to fail and fix it, or I surprise even myself and succeed at something I had anticipated failing.

An experience is an experience, whether it is a good one or a bad one.  Since I have just recently started writing poetry again, I think that I am going to challenge myself to do the NaPoWriMo, the equivalent to NaNoWriMo except you don’t end up with a novel at the end of 30 days but rather 30 poems.  It’s 1 poem a day and I would say “how hard can that be” except I know exactly how hard it is to write a good poem.

So this weekend think about what challenges you plan on making for yourself and how you can push yourself to be better and do something that maybe you didn’t even realize you could do.  Perhaps you will join the NaPoWriMo challenge with me or maybe you will even do the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge in preparation for National Novel Writing Month in November.

Even if it is a challenge that you’ve made up all your own, just make sure that you challenge yourself regularly.  Don’t get comfortable where you are right now in your writing, or in your career, if it’s not where you are planning to stay! Share your challenges here, I would love to hear about them.  Stay blessed and have a challenge filled weekend!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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What Does the Term “Being A Real Writer” Mean Anyway?

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Are you a real writer

Some days I wonder, if I don’t write that day does it make me any less of a writer?  There are those that will tell you that you must write every single day, whether it be one page, one paragraph, or even just one sentence.  For years I felt that the periods of time when I was blocked and when I wasn’t able to write anything (not anything of any merit at least) that I was no longer able to consider myself a real writer.  There was even a period of time, after having my first novel published, that I felt that because it didn’t do well that I wasn’t really a writer.

I often forget about the poetry book that I self-published and don’t even count that, although I should, just because at the time I didn’t really possess the tools that I needed to really be able to promote myself and my work.  So throughout the years I have discounted my work (some of it anyway), and I have considered the times where I slacked off a bit as days when I wasn’t to be considered as a real writer.  But who is to determine what a real writer is except for the writer themselves.

There’s this line in the movie Sister Act 2 where she told the young lady if you wake up every day and all you can think about doing is singing, then you are supposed to be singer.  The same holds true for any chosen profession including writing.  That is all that I think about.  My craft, how I can make my writing better, how I can promote my writing and myself better, what I want my writing and my media company to be able to do for people throughout the world, what I want my words to be able to change, what story comes next, what project comes next, what I want in the bookstore/lounge that I will one day open.

Writing, many different capacities of writing, is what I eat, sleep, and breathe on a daily basis.  Even if I’m not writing I am writing because I am thinking up a story in my head, a new idea for a stage play that I want to write and produce, lyrics to a song that I want to record, articles for my magazine that I might write or want to publish within my magazine, novels that I want to be turned into screenplays someday.  I write in my head a lot so even when it appears that I am not writing, I am in fact writing.

So should someone say to me that because I don’t put words to paper, or type words on a computer, on a daily basis, that I am not a real writer.  Because I get to do what I love to do from the comfort of my own home and make a living at it (as unsteady as it may be right now), does that make me any less of a writer?  I think you are what you say you are, and even more importantly, what you prove you are and what lives in your heart.

So if there are some of you who may be experiencing writer’s block of some sort, or even if you are feeling guilty because you don’t write every single day, stop feeling guilty.  There are no set rules for the profession of writing.  No proven way that it works for every single writer.  What works for you is what works for you and you should never let anyone else tell you that your way is wrong.  It may very well be wrong for that person, but your career path is not theirs.  So write in whatever fashion that you write in, in whatever time frame that you write in, without guilt and without pause.  It’s your journey to travel however you see fit.  Be blessed and carve out your own writer’s path!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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If Only I Could Have All the Answers

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Having all the answers

If you are not someone like J.K. Rowling, Terry McMillan, Steven King, or James Patterson, then making a substantial living as a writer can be a somewhat daunting task.  Admittedly there are some writers who are just starting out at trying to make a living as a writer and have it a bit easier than others.  Quite frankly there are some writers whose talent and execution of their words are not nearly good enough (not saying there is no potential for it to be) to have the success that they are having right out the gate, and yet their luck seems to be iron hot.

I don’t think of myself as the best writer out there, and I consider myself to always be working on my craft trying to make my writing better.  However, I do feel like this rise to the middle ground (which for now would suffice for me) is taking quite longer than even I had expected.  I know the sayings and the pep talks that people give, that I myself have given.  That it takes time, you have to be patient, your time will come, you just have to keep putting in the work and everything will work itself out, etc.  I know all of that but I feel like I’ve been putting in the work (I only sleep 4 hours a night), I feel like I have been patient, and I feel like my time should have already been here.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jealous of anyone else’s success level. They give me someone to study.  It’s more like I’m curious to know or be shown what I’m doing wrong and what I could be doing differently, or more efficiently.  I study and research methods of others who seem to be having the success that I am trying to achieve (not moderate but rather steady stream) and I implement some of their methods (tailor made of course to my style) and still nothing.  I know that no one can have all the answers but right now I sure wish that it was possible.  I just want to know what I am doing wrong.

I’m trying to reach certain goals and achievements in my writing career and I am way off course in terms of the time that it’s going to take me to get there.  Now of course, even with all of this frustration that you are probably gauging from this post, I am never going to give up on my dream and never going to stop working hard at attaining it.  I just wish that I could see some of the fruits of my hard labor thus far.  True I guess things could be worse and I could not be having any level of success at all but is it really wrong to want more.  Is it wrong to want to have met my own expectations of myself by now if not exceeding them?  Well I know that I can’t be the only one feeling this way so hopefully my venting has somehow helped someone else out there to realize that they are not alone in their struggles.  Keep working at it, WE will get there!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Taking Baby Steps to a Broader Horizon

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Baby steps broader horizon 2

I was working on a pitch for a guest post yesterday (cross your finger for me that it gets accepted) and within that post one of the things that I advised readers to do was to think of all of the things that they are afraid to do, or things that they said at one point in time that they would never do and still haven’t done yet, and make it a goal this year to go out and start doing those things.

It dawned on me this morning in talking with a friend about needing to broaden my horizons and experience different places that I needed to do the same thing.  There are quite a few things that I always said that I would never do, or that I thought that I couldn’t do for one reason or another, and I think that I am going to take my own advice and start doing them.  Now they may not be big things (at least not yet, have to work my way up to those) but there is nothing wrong with starting small because even baby steps allow you to move forward.

There are a lot of you out there who have those little things that you always said you wouldn’t do (ex. go on a boat, go hiking, learn how to swim, etc.) but what if you going out and doing those things, even if it was just one time, is the experience you’ve been missing from your life.  I mean if it’s something that you discover you don’t like then you never have to do it again but at least you can say you’ve done it.  However, if it happens to be something that you find out that you love to do then it can open up a whole new world of experiences for you.

When I joined a gym (one thing I said I was never going to feel comfortable doing) a few years ago I said I was not a runner and I would never use the treadmill because I didn’t like to run (mind you I also said I didn’t like to exercise either but I love it) but when I got on it I first discovered that I could run and then, surprise of all surprises, I actually liked to run.  Now how would I have ever known that if I had never just gone ahead and done it.  Now I love to run (still working on the running outside part—maybe that’s something I’ll do this year) and I miss it if I don’t get to.

So take some time and make a list of all of the things that you have been ruling out thus far.  Make some plans to maybe not rule them out just yet.  Allow yourself to be open to the new experiences, especially the ones that scare you.  Those are the ones that you will learn from the most.  Have a blessed and exploratory weekend!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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If I Put My All Into It Will it Really Be Enough?

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Just not enough

I’m having one of those weeks (yes I know the week isn’t over yet) where it feels like nothing I do will be enough.  I’m not a very patient person and it’s something I’m working on.  When I don’t see the results I want at a decent pace I get anxious about the whole process.  It’s not just in my writing and my finances, but also in the area of romance (or lack thereof).  This blog is not about my romantic woes so I won’t branch off too much into that except to say I feel like I could be described as the perfect person for someone and they still (somehow) wouldn’t even see me standing right in front of them.

But this blog isn’t about that though.  It sort of spills over into other aspects because that love thing can be the emotion that makes you feel alive and ready to jump for joy, or ready to just go hide under the covers somewhere and wake up when someone notices all of the right things that you are doing.  I know that there is always more that I can be doing (talking about writing now) but it seems like no matter how many hours of sleep I don’t get that it will never be enough.  Of course that doesn’t mean that I am going to give up or slack off (okay well there’s a slight chance for slacking off here) but just wish I could see some progress.  I know it’s being made and the baby steps are nice but some gigantic leaps would be a little nicer.  Some major dents in my journey would be gratifying to see.

I couldn’t watch the Oscars the other night but Lupita Nyong’o’s words were posted everywhere throughout social media.  “No matter where you are from your dreams are valid”.  Those words and my friend Ms. L’s blog post about her acceptance speech that she will give when she gets her Oscar one day (probably sooner than even she thinks) made me think about the awards and achievements that I will one day receive (Oscar included) and what I would say and who I would speak my words to.  However, at this particular moment, where I feel a little disheartened, a little discouraged, perhaps even a little less optimistic than usual about my dreams becoming a reality, all I can really think about is when am I going to start to see that light for the tunnel that’s headed that way.

It’s not as if I’m in question as to the possibility of it happening, or the fact that I still want it to happen, it’s just a matter of when.  I know that my patience is probably one of the main things that I need to work on when it comes to pursuing my dream but some days, days like today, I just start to wonder if all that I am doing is good enough.  Is anything I am ever going to do going to be good enough.  Hopefully tomorrow I will feel a lot more definitive and sure about things but for now my lack of knowing what the outcome will be is getting the best of me.  Okay ranting over with for the day, time to get back to working at making all of this happen one way or another.  Stay blessed and keep hustling!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Blurring the Lines Always Leaves One Side Lacking

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Blurred Lines

As I work to market my brand, my blog, my magazine, my upcoming ebook series (tentatively titled “For the Crazy Makers”), and my writing services, it is hard to actually find time to put into my writing.  I mean I am still finishing up work on the first book in the ebook series and getting ready to start work on the second book but that’s a non-fiction project and has nothing to do with the novel that I still need to finish or the other novel that I need to have edited.

Sometimes the lines between the business of writing and actually creatively writing get a little blurred. They don’t always meet in the middle and more often than not you end up doing one end of the spectrum than the other.  I’m not sure I have come across anyone yet that can give equal amounts of time to both effectively.  So why did I expect it to be any different for me?  I don’t know.  Call it crazy optimism or just plain wishful thinking but I really did think that there was a way I could adequately focus on both without sacrificing time for either one.  That is not the case.

I guess I am doing a disservice by even trying to split my time between the two in half because then it means I can’t give my full attention to either one.  I am still trying to figure out a system to make it work for both sides but so far, my creative writing side is suffering drastically because I felt I needed to get my business side of my writing together.  After all, what good is having large amounts of content with no one caring enough to read it?

I can’t do everything perfectly and that’s something I have to come to terms with as well.  I have to stop trying to do everything perfectly and stop thinking that everything can get done all at once.  All things will happen in their due time.  Right now, I have to hustle to keep getting my name out there or else I’ll have a shelf full of books I’ve written and no one to actually read them.  Did you get your hustle on today?  Stay hungry and Stay Foolish!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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You’ve Already Created Who You Are In This Moment

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Create your best life

How many times have you heard someone say that they have to go and find themselves?  That they have to search for that knowledge of self, for that sense of purpose?  I have heard that saying a lot used by people, some who were truly lost and others who just truly needed an excuse for why they weren’t doing anything.  I actually hear that phrase from writers a lot because they are always so caught up in making up a life for their characters that they sometimes forget to live the life that they already have.

I heard this quote the other day “The self is not something one finds, it is something one creates”, and it just stuck with me.  People who are always trying to find themselves, trying to figure out what it is they want in life, they don’t realize that in their journey to find themselves, all of the decisions they are making, the mistakes that they are enduring, is already creating who they are meant to be.  Some decisions made for us, when we are too young to know any better, they are in a sense out of our hands, but how we deal with the fallout, the end result, that is in ours.

When we choose something, be it right or wrong, little by little it shapes who we are, and eventually who we become.  None of us start off knowing what kind of person we are going to be at the end of our journey.  Growing up I had to learn and teach myself how to love me.  I guess you could say that who I am now, I created that person and had I made a choice to continue not loving myself and to continue to think that because my mother didn’t love me, or at least didn’t express that love to me, that I was somehow unworthy of that love from others, especially from myself, had I continued down that path I suppose I would have created a whole other type of person than I am now.

So before any of you get it in your head that they need to find themselves and discover who they really are, keep in mind that the decisions you have already been making are already creating the person you were meant to be.  Stop searching for who it is that you think you should be, or should have been and embrace the person that you have already created thus far.  Our journey is not done yet but who we are meant to be is already inside of us, we don’t have to find it, we just have to create it.  Stop waiting for some moment of revelation to come, some big moment where suddenly everything you are is so clear to you.  Create the life you want, don’t sit and wait for it to be created for you to find.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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