Tag: goals

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Even When the Bad Days Outweigh the Good

September 4, 2012 jcladyluv

So it’s not starting off being a good week and I am feeling almost completely defeated. But notice I said that I almost. The bad days that I’m having are really starting to overshadow any of the good one’s I manage to have. But I can not throw in the towel because that would be too easy. To let everything that I’ve been working towards and struggling to achieve fall by the waist-side all because I can’t see the finished product ahead of time would be quite possibly the biggest mistake that I could ever make.

I have a deadline for a goal I set at the beginning of this year and I haven’t spoken about it much lately because several times I have almost placed it on the back burner and wanted to just give up on the idea altogether but it is not in me to just give up. I said that I was going to launch the Write 2 Be Online Magazine in January of 2013 and that is what I am going to do.

I’ve been working on this magazine and putting it together little by little (both in my mind and on paper) and I have taken my time with it so that when I launch it I can be proud of it. This, for me, could be the start of things heading in the right direction (or at least a better direction then I’ve been heading) and I really want to honor what my heart and my gut is telling me to do. I just have to work really hard at not letting those bad days get the better of me.

I am still looking for contributors if anyone who reads this is interested and you can check back on this site under the Write 2 Be Magazine tab for periodic updated information.

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 First Time Around

August 14, 2012 jcladyluv

Ever wonder what might have been different if all of the opportunities that you have been given, you had got it right the first time around? If you had the money to do everything that you need and want to do to become successful would you actually be doing them right now instead of just wishing you could be doing them?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that I need to do to get things going the way that I need them to be going and how the lack of money has held me up from actually following through with a lot of those things. I’ve also been thinking about all of the opportunities that I have had that could have enabled me to be in a different place right now that I have just somehow squandered away. What kind of difference would it make if I had got it all right the first time around?

If I had finished college the first time I went and completed my degrees then, instead having to work extra hard to try and finish them up now, so late in the game, then I might already be working in the media industry now as I have always dreamed of. I might have already moved to New York like I wanted to all those years ago so that I can be surrounded by exactly the right people I need to be surrounded by. I could have all the right contacts and connections and I would already have my foot in the door that I am trying hard to kick down now.

I could have learned from the best how to be the best and already be halfway up the ladder by now instead of still being on the second or third rung. I probably would already be on some New York Time’s best sellers list and I probably would have already had about three or four novels out by now because I would not have had any other responsibilities to worry about other then myself and my work. I could have already achieved so much by now if I had only done things right the first time around.

Money would most likely not be an issue (being a New York Time’s best seller and all and working as an editor for a publishing company while freelancing for some of the most prestigious magazines that are housed in New York) so I would not have any problem trying to get my own media empire started because with only myself as a responsibility and my work of course, I could put away money towards that empire and the things that I need to do for it. Life could be so different right now.

But the catch to all of that what if stuff is that if all of that had transpired (so-called) right the first time around, then I wouldn’t have met my daughter’s father and I wouldn’t have my wonderful, beautiful, and intelligent daughter who I would not trade for any amount of money, success, or fame. She is the reason that I get up in the morning and I really have a hard time trying to ever envision my life without her in it. She makes me want to fight harder to get things back on track and to make sure that she never gets off track. But also she is proof to me that sometimes what you think would have turned out better if it had been done right the first time around, might not actually be the case.

I don’t even know if all of that would have come to be without her coming along in my life, but I do know that the possibility is not lost. I also know that she has enriched my life in ways that I think make me a better writer and a better person. We can always wonder what would be different if we had another attempt at doing things all over again but when you really think about it, perhaps what you considered to be right in the first place was all wrong for you. Perhaps for our second shot at things, rather then wishing we could go back and do things differently we should treat our new opportunities as if they are what’s right for us now. Let’s try not looking back at a past we can’t change, but instead looking forward to a future that was meant to be.

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

Riding Around On a Near Empty Tank

August 10, 2012 jcladyluv

I was reading an article on the Freelance Writer’s Den website that is supposed to help struggling freelance writers figure out how to better market themselves and their business. There are a total of 21 marketing tips and I have decided to take one at a time and kind of marinate on them and really take them in and process them. The first one is of course that you have to believe in your product, in this case, me.

It commented on the obvious fears that freelance writers, or writers in general, experience as they try to build their business and get them off the ground good, especially the one’s that are struggling to even get the wheels of the plane up. It gave a couple of suggestions about how to fill up your positive-feelings tank and I thought that was a good and interesting way to look at it.

If my confidence this week were a gas tank I would be really close to empty right now and I have to work on filling that tank up and keeping it damn near full all the time (if not always full). The list that the article gave on how to re-build your confidence and positive feelings about yourself included many things but the things that stuck out to me were to avoid negative and toxic people and surround yourself with people who think you are great, flipping through your portfolio of work to remind yourself how good you are, and to list your strengths as a writer.

Now I am working on making sure I surround myself with positive energy and people that exude that, and I have occasionally flipped through my portfolio of work and was astonished at some of the things that I have produced, but one thing that I have never done is make a list of my strengths as a writer and as a person. Perhaps I will try that this weekend and perhaps that will help to fill my positive-feelings tank (or as I like to refer to it as my confidence tank) up to its highest capacity.

It’s not that I don’t believe that I am a good writer (most of the time) and that I was meant to communicate with my words. It’s that I worry way too much about whether everyone else will agree and my confidence as far as other people finding my writing great is wavering, a lot. I still haven’t worked through all of my fears but I know that I’m going 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

What’s Your Motivation When the Odds Are Stacked Against You?

July 30, 2012 jcladyluv

I read a blog post the other day that asked the question ‘Is having something to prove a good enough reason to do something?’ When I read the post the blogger discussed how perhaps we should not use someone telling us that we can’t achieve something or someone’s negativity altogether to influence or motivate whether or not we in fact decide to go after what it is that we want. She stated that people pleasing was something not to get caught up in. Initially I felt that she might have a point to that statement and that people’s sheer passion for doing something should be enough to ‘just do it’ and that it shouldn’t take someone else telling us no or rejecting our passion for us to go at it full force.

But then I realized something. Isn’t that the nature of how dreams are realized, and how businesses are built, and how people are made to be successful? I mean of course you dream something and naturally you want to achieve that dream no matter what and when you start a business you hopefully are starting that business because it is something that you’ve always wanted to do. But if you listen to a lot of successful people talk about how they got there and how they accomplished their dreams and started their businesses, a lot of it had something to do with what someone told them they would never be able to do.

Think of how many singers and film stars were told no, and how many times they were told no, and how many people even told them that they were crazy to think they would ever really make it. Now think about how that just fired them up to going after that dream with even more force and more drive. Think about Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates and how many people told them they would never make it and that they would never see their dreams become a reality and how those words must have fueled the fire that was already lit underneath them.

I remember hearing an interview once about an entrepreneur going after their dream and starting their own company (can’t quite remember who at this exact moment) and when they were asked what made them go after their goal when all of the odds were stacked against them, their response was simply ‘someone told me I couldn’t have it’. It’s amazing what someone telling you NO will do for your drive and ambition to prove them wrong and get what you want in spite of all the odds stacked against you. I hate to be told NO but if I really think about it, when I do get to where I want to be in life, those No’s will be what made me so fiercely determined to prove everyone who said I couldn’t do it wrong.

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

Redefining What Is Possible

July 19, 2012 jcladyluv

It seems as if this week God is sending me all sorts of signs to lead me in the direction that I need to go. It’s as if every doubt that I have is getting answered and addressed each day of the week and leaving me with absolutely NO excuses. The other day I was going over just how many things were holding me back from just diving right in and then Ms. L. tells me about her 11 year old son starting his business with probably more limitations than I have, and yet here I am holding myself back.

This morning I was thinking of all of the big dreaming that I keep doing and wondering just how much of what I want to accomplish is attainable. I mean just what are my possibilities of making all of this stuff actually happen. I was honestly going over the list of life goals that I made a long, long time ago in my head and wondering just what it was that I should cross off because it just wouldn’t be possible. Then I heard a remarkable story on the news this morning about a man who had just climbed the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Kilimanjaro. Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s so special about that, surely he’s not the first person to do that? That would be a true statement, but I believe that he is the fist person to do it with no legs.

Spencer West was born with a genetic disorder in which his lower spine was poorly developed and left his legs permanently crossed and essentially useless. By the time he was 5 years old he had to have his legs amputated to just below the pelvis area. The doctors told him and his parents that he would never be able to sit up let alone walk and that he would never be a functioning member of society.

Not only did he defy what the doctors limited him to but he has gone on to do public speaking, candidly telling his story in hopes of inspiring others that anything is possible. He works with a charity called Free The Children and the climb up the mountain was a campaign that he called Redefine Possible and helped to raise almost $750,000 for the charity.

Now as I am watching and listening to him speak and being so inspired by his story, I am wondering how can anything on my list of goals be considered impossible when this man, who has every reason to think that his options are limited, doesn’t see that there is anything that is not possible. It is completely ironic how the stories that you need to hear the most, the one’s that truly will inspire you, always come right at the exact moment that you need to hear them.

I suppose that it’s not really about my big dreams and goals being impossible, it’s more so about what my definition of possible really is. Everything is not possible for every individual, but once again, this is not about what someone else deems as being possible when it comes to my ambitions. It’s only about my own interpretation of just how far I can go and what I know is not impossible. It’s kind of hard to think that there is anything that you can’t do once you see a man with no legs climb the tallest mountain in the world.

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

Maybe Things Would Have Been Better If…

July 17, 2012 jcladyluv

Often times I wonder (too often to actually count) if I made the right decision by choosing not to go back into the traditional work force as most single parents do and make that steady and stable income every other week. I mean let’s face it, it’s not as if I have hit it big or anything and if I want to get real honest I am not doing as well in my writing career as I thought I would be by now, or that I know I should be doing.

I think of all the things I want to buy for my daughter and the activities that I would like to put her in to enhance her creative nature that I just can’t afford right now and I wonder what the hell am I doing and I constantly wonder am I completely screwing her life up by not just accepting the fact that this just isn’t working and maybe it’s just not for me. I mean it’s not like it wouldn’t be nice to have a steady and predictable stream of income coming in that I know I can count on.

But then yesterday morning as I was getting my daughter ready for daycare (it acts as a camp during the summer) she said ‘thank you mommy’. I asked her what she was thanking me for and she replied ‘for taking such good care of me’. She said that I am always there when she needs me. She almost brought me to tears and I was so touched. She made me feel like the choice not to go back to a traditional job and stay home with her, all while still pursuing my dreams of making what I love to do my career, was totally worth it. Yesterday, just her appreciation of me, let me know that it was the right decision, for me anyway.

It is all the more motivation to let me know that I have to have less moments of procrastination and more moments of productivity because I have to make this work, I have to do what I know in my heart I was meant to do. Not just because I love doing it and it is my passion, but because being able to write and become more successful at it makes moments like yesterday with my daughter even more possible.

It would make it more of a certainty that I will continue to always be here when she needs me and that I will always take very good care of her. More importantly it will show her that you can go after your dreams and make it work even though everyone else around you may be telling you that you’re crazy for ever thinking this could work and to be more realistic. I want her to not be afraid to go after her dreams and to not have to think that going after her dreams is going to do more harm then good.

So in an effort to procrastinate less and produce more, I am going to make it a point to accomplish at least three things every week (3 is a nice workable number) to get me further along in my writing career. Whether it is actually working on my novel (which is still not finished) or just getting those query letters that I keep trying to make perfect sent out so someone can actually see them. Even if it is just gathering research for a particular project, that is still working towards the end goal of finishing that project. I think that is a goal that I can work with and actually stick to.

Until I do make things happen the way that I want them to, I have to work on tuning that voice in the back of my mind that questions if things would’ve been better if I had made another choice. Fact of the matter is that I will never know the answer to that because I chose to do me and not what someone else might have thought I should do. I’m certainly not going to become the success that I want to be by doing what everyone else thinks I should.

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 With Good Intentions There Are Still Distractions

July 12, 2012 jcladyluv

Good intention without the action to back it up is just that, intention. There’s no real follow through involved in the things that you intend to get done, just a lot of wishing you had actually accomplished your task. I had a plan this morning to get all of this work done on a couple of my projects and I even went to the great lengths of bringing my notebooks and my laptop out into the dining room where the T.V. was not on to distract me (I have a T.V. in the living room but the only one who really watches that one is my daughter).

I tore myself away from one distraction only to be plagued with a lot of emotions and thoughts running through my mind about some personal stuff that lead to me calling Ms. L. to talk, thus diverting my attention away from all of the work that I had intended to get done. The conversation that I had was good, don’t get me wrong, and it was something that I needed to talk out with someone (since I can’t really talk them out with the person that I really needed to talk them out with), but it gave me another excuse to use for not getting any writing done.

I suppose that one could say that talking out what was going on in my head did in some way help me get something done. If I hadn’t I would still be sitting here, staring at a blank computer screen with a bunch of unnecessary thoughts running through my mind (that have nothing to do with any project I’m working on), and I would become completely blocked. In addition, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity of writing this particular blog post.

Sometimes what appears as us being unproductive can help us break through those walls that are blocking us from our greatest potential. I guess the good intentions that you don’t always manage to follow through on just might lead to something else that was intended to work out better for you in the long run.

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

From One Struggling Writer to the Rest Who Think They Are Struggling Alone

July 9, 2012 jcladyluv

Sometime last week (it may have been the week before that) Ms. L sent me a link to a blog post titled Don’t Break the Chain by a wonderful blogger named Catherine Ryan Howard who I am now following (and you all should be too). Ms. L knows I have been struggling with finding the time to write and work on all things related to my writing business so she thought that this would be helpful. Well as usual, Ms. L always knows just what I need to read (and hear) to get me jump started again. Of course it helped to know that this post also helped Ms. L as well because I knew that I was not alone in my struggles to be productive in my writing efforts.

Well the blog post talked about many things in regards to one being more productive but more importantly it gave the idea of marking off days on a calendar with a red X for every day that you have accomplished your daily writing goals, whether it be actually writing or working on the business side of your writing career, and of course after so many days of seeing a chain of red X’s you get into the mode of not wanting to break that chain and having to see those X’s stare you in the face everyday becomes an incentive to actually get things done.

Well there is a website that helps with that, for those of us who don’t want to go out and buy a huge wall calendar to mark down the days. The website (once you register) will allow you to mark each day with a red square for every day that you have achieved your daily goals and you can even create other chains for you business efforts or whatever other goals you want to set. I signed up (almost immediately) and have found it to be extremely helpful.

I have actually been getting things done because I simply just don’t want to break the chains that I have created for myself. Who knew something so simple as marking off days on a calendar could be so helpful in keeping me focused and making me produce more work. I hope that any of you out there who is struggling with this very same issue clicks on the links to the websites and gets started on their road to becoming more productive.

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

Is the Fighter Still in There Somewhere?

June 13, 2012 jcladyluv

I was sitting here wondering what to write about tonight? Honestly right now all I feel is a sense of loss. No, no one in my family or close to me died but in some ways I am wondering if the best part of me did. I was just asking my best friend Ms. L. last night whether or not she remembered the times when she would call me and I would rush her off the phone telling her that ‘I have to call you back because I’m writing and I have to get this out’. She said that she remembered that very well. I asked her where did that person go and she simply responded, ‘she’ll be back’.

For as long as I could remember I have wanted to be a writer and have books upon books out on shelves and change the world with my words. But that wasn’t all that I had hoped for. I wanted to be immersed in creativity from singing and acting and even dancing. More importantly I wanted to be a symbol for why the arts and creativity is so necessary in this world.

I don’t know whether I just got so bogged down by the many people that were in my life telling me that I couldn’t do what I always felt I was meant to do. I don’t know if I just got tired of being rejected and not having the resources I needed to make my dreams a reality. I don’t know if there’s just some part of me that just got tired of fighting for those dreams.

As I sit here, still mentally thinking up ideas for my next story, I am still unable to finish the novel that I have been working on since the end of last year. While I know there are tons of query letters that I need to send out to agents for the second novel I have already done (which is with my editor), I can’t seem to craft the perfect one to send out. Although I have dozens of ideas for articles to write and even articles that I’ve already written that I need to write query letters for, I still find myself scared that the query letters won’t be perfect enough to get accepted.

So what happened to the fighter that I had in me ready to do whatever it took? What happened to the person who was prepared to stay up however long it took to get the work done? What happened to that person who, when she didn’t have what she needed, made up the resources where there weren’t any, just to fulfill her purpose? I know that she’s still in there somewhere. I just don’t know where the fight in me went.

What I do know is that the passion is still there. The desire is still there. I still wake up with stories in my head and new ideas for the stories I have yet to finish. I still mentally am working on my vision for my media and publishing company. I am still dreaming up ideas for the creativity camp that I want to create for kids so that they understand just how important the arts are to have in their lives. I know that my dreams haven’t changed and they haven’t faded away. I just need to dig that fighter in me back out.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”