Tag: goals

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NaNoWriMo Day # 26: When the Idea Fairy Strikes!

November 26, 2012 jcladyluv

If any of you out there are anything like me, you get a heavy stream of new ideas just as you are entering the home stretch of a current project and need to stay focused solely on that project alone. If that is the case then just as you are finishing up your 50,000 words for your NaNoWriMo Novel in these last four days you will all of a sudden start to be hit with new wonderful ideas for the next novel.

Soon those ideas will invade your head space and you may find yourself unable to maintain your focus on the NaNoWriMo novel that you are currently finishing. This is going to be hard to do but you have to ignore those ideas for these next four (well probably three by the time most of you read this) days just until you have finished what you set out to do in the beginning of November.

Now of course I’m not saying to ignore 100% and not at least jot something about those ideas down quickly (operative word being quickly) but you can’t afford to go into long drawn out plans and outlines here. Not when you have another novel that you’ve already started to finish up.

I know how hard that is for us writers to do, just scribble some notes with no full detail about an idea without elaborating on it as badly as you want to (this would be why I have so many started and not finished novels) but your job for these last few days of NaNoWriMo is to stay focused on the task at hand. So remember that you are almost there, only three more days to go after this one, and you will have completed this goal.

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 24: Are We There Yet?

November 24, 2012 jcladyluv

The short and simple answer, No! I know that has to be the question in almost everyone’s mind right now as we approach the 5 day countdown (maybe that’s just me who does the countdown near the end).

Some of you are nearing burnout from the sleep you aren’t getting to finish this novel. Some of you are just delirious from all of the ideas that have just been streaming through your mind. Some of you might just be ready for this to be over because you are just fresh out of a direction for your novel to go in and the pressure of NaNoWriMo is not helping your creative flow. There are even some of you who, miracle of miracles, are already done (Congratulations if this is you!).

No matter what stage you are at in your NaNoWriMo novel, you are at the same point as everyone else, 5 days left. Even if you have reached your 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, you most likely still aren’t finished with the first draft. I wish all of you luck in finishing your projects with these last few days approaching. I wish I can say that all of my efforts in NaNoWriMo have been what I wanted them to be but I’m still hanging in there. Let’s finish up strong everyone.

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 23: Time to Get Back to Work

November 23, 2012 jcladyluv

Okay Thanksgiving is over. No more preparation. No more (hopefully) out of town guests to keep occupied. No more food to cook and leftover plates to fix. There’s nothing left (hopefully) to clean up anymore. Now it’s time to remind yourself of your commitment to your NaNoWriMo goals and get back in the chair and get back to your story and write.

Some of you might have taken some time off of writing the last couple of day and probably have to actually take some extra time to get back into the flow of your story. Others might have written the last couple of days but don’t feel that it was up to your usual standards that you set for yourself.

No matter what the excuse is that you want to give yourself right now; you took too many days away from the novel, it just doesn’t flow the way it used to, or even you think that you’ve fallen too far behind on your word count; you have to banish those excuses right out of your head.

The goal is to finish NaNoWriMo with a first draft but the most important part of that goal (even if you don’t get 50,000 words by November 30^th) is that you never stop trying. So get your butt back in that chair and write and don’t give up. Hang on in there. You’re almost at that finish line.

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 20: Have You Learned How to Balance and Weave?

November 20, 2012 jcladyluv

It’s hard to find balance when you are trying to juggle so many tasks at once. Writing a novel is not an easy task and when you take on the added pressure of participating in National Novel Writing Month and having to write every single day and write a specific amount of words just to meet one specific goal.

If you add to that the pressure of completing the other projects and tasks that you have to do that also concern your writing career such as keeping up with your blog, making that deadline for the novel or non-fiction book that you need to get to your editor, or the articles that you are being paid to write by a specific time, it can be extremely hard to find that balance to handle it all. Here are a few suggestions on how you can balance your Novel and your other writing projects and weave them into one another, if you can.

1) Separate your writing tasks and times over different days. For instance, choose to work on your novel for NaNoWriMo at one time period of the day (in the morning or in the evening) and work on one of your other writing assignments in the opposite time period of the day. If you have multiple tasks aside from your NaNoWriMo novel then split it up and do one task on one day and another on another day.

2) If your main writing tasks aside from doing your NaNoWriMo novel is doing your blog then weave the two tasks together. Blog about your NaNoWriMo experience. Blog about your novel and how the process of writing your novel is going. Blog about your characters and allow your readers to get to know them before your novel even gets published and comes out. This will allow your blog posts to come a little easier to you while under the pressure of writing your novel and still keep you on course with maintaining your blog.

3) Write your articles that have to be written about your experience of NaNoWriMo. Write articles about your process of writing your novel. Write the articles that you are submitting for payment about having to balance your novel with your other tasks of being a writer, a business person, and a parent. These articles will not only come easier because you are living that experience but they won’t take too much extra thought process and research (that it would take to do the health related article you would normally be writing right now) which would be time taken away from writing your novel.

4) If you honestly are not good at balancing the multiple writing tasks then focus on the novel and write notes regarding the other projects you need to work on in a notepad. This allows you to focus on that novel, get it done, and still not lose the ideas that you have for your other projects. That way when you are finished with NaNoWriMo and your novel you can immediately go implement the ideas and notes that you jotted down with your other projects.

I hope some of these suggestions help you keep that balance and get that novel done. There’s only ten more days so hang in there. You can do this!

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 15: The Halfway Point

November 15, 2012 jcladyluv

It’s officially halftime. You’ve invested so much of yourself and your time to this novel already. At this moment some of you may be wondering if you can keep up this routine and this drive for the next fifteen days and finish this up strong.

Thanksgiving is next week, you’ve got to go out of town or you’ve got family coming in town. You’ve got all of this food to cook and the kids are going to be home from school so your time is going to be harder to divide up. Not to mention Christmas is right around the corner and we all know how much preparing for the Christmas holiday can take out of a person. It’s tough to even imagine finishing up this task knowing that soon (next week) your focus will be torn.

As unimaginable as it seems that you can actually finish this novel in the midst of a holiday season embarking, it really is possible. It may take some extra effort and perhaps even more sleepless nights (or nights with a lot less sleep than you normally get) but it is in fact doable. As tempting as it might be (and believe me, I know it’s very tempting), don’t throw in the towel. You have hung in there this long and now that you’ve made it to the middle of the month you owe it to yourself (and your future readers) to finish what you started.

Now for those of you that don’t have this problem of losing focus right in the middle of your journey, please share your secret to staying focused (perhaps even bottle it up and sell it) because I sure would like to know. If this month is like a piece of cake to you and your story is flowing better than even you expected, then congratulations and keep writing. Halfway past the starting line and halfway to the finish!

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 5: Resist the Urge You Have to Edit What You Have Done So Far

November 5, 2012 jcladyluv

You’ve spotted a scene at the beginning of the story that you are dying to change. You notice some things that you didn’t include that need to be in there that will enhance the view the readers get of your character and you may have even seen a couple of unnecessary things that you need to take out. As tempting as it is for you to go back and edit that scene (or those couple of scenes), DON’T DO IT!

NaNoWriMo is a month for the first draft, the first imperfect draft. There is no editing in this month. If you start editing things now, you won’t be able to stop and you will end up losing momentum and falling behind in your word count. I know what you’re thinking. “Wouldn’t that add more words to my word count overall?”

Yes, true enough it would do that, but it would also throw your word count off. Suddenly you would have to figure out what words you counted are now deleted and what words you added should now be counted towards your overall word count tally. I know that in your mind you see all kinds of improvements that need to be made already but resist the urge. Trust me, you will have plenty of time to edit later. That’s what December is for!

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 Writer That Doesn’t Put Themselves Out There Doesn’t Get Seen

October 18, 2012 jcladyluv

It is very hard to put yourself out there in any capacity, be it love or your career. It stirs up feelings of fear of being rejected, not being good enough, not being accepted, not succeeding at your end goal, and even of how you will handle it if you do succeed. Being a writer, you find yourself having to put yourself out there quite often, at least until you have put in enough hard work and effort to where the people you want to write for are finally coming to you.

It takes time to get to that point, where you are no longer the cat in the cat and mouse game of becoming successful at earning your income as a writer, and have finally become the mouse being sought after. I used to wonder when I started trying to make a go at this, just how long do I have to keep putting myself all out there only to continually be rejected time and time again before someone comes looking for me.

I realize now, and frankly way too late, that in order to become and remain a successful writer, you can’t ever stop putting yourself out there. Even more embarrassing and much to my deep regret, I have realized that I have wasted so much time feeling all of those fears and playing into them, that I haven’t actually been putting myself out there (not nearly as much as I should have been anyway) and I only have myself to blame for not being a household name by now.

The blame doesn’t fall on the editor’s and the people who haven’t accepted my wonderful words and given me that chance that I am dying to have in order to get into all of those national magazines that I want to be featured in. I only have myself to blame for not completely putting myself out there. They can’t accept what I am too afraid to submit.

A writer’s only way of becoming published, of becoming that success that we all dream about becoming, is to keep putting themselves out there. No matter what the outcome, whether it is good or bad, they have to keep going for it, even when it seems impossible; especially when it seems to be impossible. A fighter never wins the battle if they never fight to begin with.

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

Everything Is Not Always a Good Fit

October 2, 2012 jcladyluv

Last week my best friend Ms. L. wrote a blog post about people not thinking that they are too good to do something in order for them to get further ahead. She was speaking of people who make comments such as “I don’t do windows, or I will not work at a fast food restaurant, or I won’t scrub and clean people’s floors” but still find themselves scrambling to get ahead. She spoke about the people who turn their noses up at those particular types of jobs because they believe that they are supposed to be somewhere better but yet they have not paid their dues.

Now while I agree with some of what she says in her post, I have to say, unashamedly, that I am one of those people who will not take a job at a fast food restaurant or cleaning rooms at a hotel. However, it is most certainly not me looking down on people that work in the fast food or restaurant industry or people who are maids, or are in the retail industry. In fact I worked in the retail industry for years and yes as a part of that work I did clean some bathrooms, and I cleaned up other people’s mess, and I did grunt work that I absolutely hated.

When I decided to work on making writing my full time and only job (or passion with benefits of income as I would rather refer to it) it wasn’t because I felt I was too good to work in those industries (because believe me, I know that is not the case), but rather because I no longer wanted to work to further someone else’s dreams (being the owners of those companies) while my dreams took a seat somewhere in the far back corner. It wasn’t that I felt I was above those positions, it was more that I felt I would be doing a disservice to those who worked in those industries and loved what they do and who do it well.

It’s kind of like when you go into a restaurant and have the worst waitress you could possibly have and you leave the restaurant saying to yourself “if she doesn’t want to be there, she just shouldn’t be working there”. I don’t want to be one of those people who is doing a job because I am desperate and have no choice because then I will never do the job the way that it is supposed to be done. I feel that I am destined to do a specific job on this earth and I just don’t want to waste my time, or anyone else’s for that matter, doing a horrible job at something that I wasn’t meant to do in the first place.

I agree that you should never look down on jobs that don’t appear to be glamorous, especially if you don’t know what it is that you want to do and you are trying to find your footing. However, I also feel that if you know that you have a dream and a goal, and you know what direction you are headed in, you should never settle for something that you can’t give 100 percent to. It’s not turning your nose up at a particular job, or even those that do that particular job, to realize that you just wouldn’t do that job justice and that it just isn’t a good fit for you.

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 In the Midst of the Storm

September 26, 2012October 2, 2012 jcladyluv

I read an inspirational message on facebook the other day that made me stop and rethink about the things that I’ve been dealing with lately. It read:

“Don’t confuse your path with your destination. Just because it’s stormy now doesn’t mean that you aren’t headed for sunshine.”

I’ve been so frustrated with this path that I am on lately. I have been second guessing decisions I made months ago, even years ago, and wondering if my gut steered me wrong this time. I’ve been second guessing the destination that I thought my path was leading me to.

I’ve been hit with a recent storm of bad weather and agonizing over just how long this particular storm was going to last because Lord only knows it’s not my first and it probably will not be my last. When I read that post on facebook I started to realize that maybe that’s what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks during my own personal torrential downpour that I have been experiencing lately.

I have been confusing the path that I am on with the destination that I am eventually headed towards. I have been forgetting that the rocky path has absolutely nothing to do with the destination that God has already laid out for me. I’ve had a life full of days of bad weather and what seems like even less days of sunshine.

I may have to weather the storm right now, in this moment, but I have to remind myself that with every storm the sunshine does follow. And sometimes after the storm there’s even a rainbow just to show you how bright it is on the other end of that storm that you’ve just weathered.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”