Tag: ideas

Even When I Don’t Feel Like It

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So normally I would have some thought provoking things to say, like I try to at the start of every week to not only motivate myself but hopefully motivate all of you who read my blog as well. However, today is not going to be one of those days. If I’m being honest, because I try to be as authentic as possible here with you guys, the last couple of weeks have been emotionally and mentally draining and I am not feeling extremely motivated today. So why am I posting today anyway then? Simply put, I made a promise to myself that I would do better at making a habit of writing daily this year.

What that means is that I don’t just want to not write at all because I’m feeling depressed or because I’m feeling mentally exhausted (like the world is about to crumble in on me) because that’s what I’ve done in previous years and then I become absent and then my writing, the one thing that I love more than almost anything (second only to my daughter), becomes non-existent. At that point the only habit that I would have created was that of NOT writing and then I end up with all these ideas stored up in my head with nothing to show for it. They say it takes thirty days to form a habit and this past November when I did NaNoWriMo again after not doing it for a while, I struck up that habit again and I fell even more in love with writing (if that was even possible). After all isn’t that what NaNoWriMo is all about, creating a way for writers who struggle to get in the habit of making writing a daily thing.

So while I may be feeling a little out of sorts today and I am struggling to even find words to write this, I knew that I had to because writing is like breathing for me. I can’t break this habit again because I’ve discovered when I let the days slip by without getting any words down, I become more and more out of sorts and unmotivated, and not like myself and that is not going to get me anywhere. It certainly isn’t going to help get the three books I plan to self-publish this year finished. So that’s all I have for you today and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be more for you but I did my best I just have to hope that it’s enough. Until next time… #BeMindful #BeYou

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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It’s the First Day of Preptober!!

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It’s the first day of October and we’re getting into that holiday season but for writers it’s also a special time of year for a whole other reason. This is the month that we as writers use to prepare for the marathon month that November has become called National Novel Writing Month. Realistically if you’re serious about participating in NaNoWriMo then you probably have already formulated the idea for the story that you’re going to work on in November and you may have even began sketching out the characters for your story. If you haven’t, don’t worry, that is what the month of October is here for. There are many aspects to prepping for the NaNoWriMo experience but I’m here to give you some suggestions over the course of this month that will hopefully help you in the many ways they have helped me.

Today I’m going to focus on the first step you really need which is the idea for the story and typically a main character to center the story around. Now there are many different ways to start your planning process. Some people like to think of the way their story is going to end and kind of work their way backwards. I for one have never been able to start at the end but it works for some people. There is also a very small group of writers who like to start with the middle and build the story outwards, usually building up to the end first and then back in the other direction to the beginning. Then there are those strange birds like myself who actually like to take a story idea from the very beginning (sometimes even thinking of the opening scene) through to the middle and work my way to the end in a chronological order.

Now I know plenty of writers who have to have their character first and I will admit that I have had some stories where the character literally spoke to me and told me the story they wanted told but those occasions were rare for me. Most of time the story that needs to be told comes first and then the character presents themselves to me afterwards. After you’ve built the story idea and this is not to be confused with an actual outline) then you want to begin developing your characters. Some create character sketches that give the basic details of those characters and their background and their personalities and some like to go all in and create a character bible of sorts where the spend several pages on each character.

You have to find what works for you because one writer’s method may not be what works for your story. Once you have your story idea built and your character sketches done the next step is creating your outline, but that I will discuss in more detail in the next post. Throughout this Preptober series I will also include tips and specific book suggestions, as well as sharing some YouTube channels with you that can be of some use and help to you. Until the next time… #BePrepared

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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The Creative Circle We Keep

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Creative circle post

I had a wonderful, much needed conversation last night with one of my fellow creative friends and it gave me the extra boost that I was in need of. When you’re a creative it’s not always easy to find other creative people that will get you and your (sometimes out there) ideas the way that you do. I don’t need a lot of people around me, it goes against my solitary, anti-social (more like socially anxious) nature, but what I do need every once in a while is someone to throw ideas around with, preferably someone who isn’t just going to tell me something is a good idea because they can feel the sheer excitement that I have for it. I need someone honest, who’s going to tell me if it’s any good or even if it’s just so out there that it might actually work because chances are that I would otherwise second-guess myself right out of it.

Last night I got some clarity on a few things I was thinking about and she even gave me some perspective on some ideas that I wasn’t even viewing as broadly as I should have been. She’s a really good person, who understands my neuroses (because we’ve known each other for over a decade) and how sometimes the overload of ideas can drive you up a wall because she’s a creative too and she takes risks every day within her writing career. Today, carrying the words of our conversation in my mind, I was definitely more focused and I was a little more confident in taking a few risks I had been holding back on before. I felt inspired and I felt ready to inspire others!

I think that all creative people, especially writers, should make sure they have someone in their life, in their circle that they can help give them some kind of clarity on the ideas they are thinking of. If you’re anything like me, you need someone to keep you from second guessing everything wondering if this or that is going to work because inevitably there’s always going to be someone that isn’t going to like what you do and you can’t let the thoughts of those few that won’t like it and won’t get it detract from the hundreds, or thousands, maybe even millions of people who you could help or motivate or encourage with what you desire to put out into the world. If you already have that circle in place, treasure it and nurture it because it is precious and it is not always easy to come by.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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Getting Back into the Writer’s Flow of Things

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Back in the writing flow of things (27)

So I know that I’ve been missing in action and it has been quite a while since I last wrote and I didn’t mean for it to take me so long to get back in the rhythm of things but you know how creativity strikes, or rather in some cases doesn’t strike. I had hit a creative wall and it wasn’t necessarily a lack of ideas, but a lack of knowing how to focus my ideas in a productive manner. I actually think that a part of my issue is that I have too many ideas and in a perfect world I would be able to do the work of ten people all at once and be able to get all of my ideas off the ground and running all at the same time. Alas, this is most certainly not a perfect world, and I am only one person with only two hands and I can not multiply myself the way I need to in order to get a lifetime worth of accomplishments done in a short period of time. I suppose if I hadn’t spent a large amount of wasted time second guessing every idea I’ve had, and every dream I’ve wanted to go after then I could have produced more of my ideas by now.

I got a boost of writing motivation when I participated in this writing challenge in September. It was Tara-Nicholle Nelson’s 10 Day Writing Challenge for Conscious Leaders (you can find out more about by looking it up through Facebook) and it was a very cathartic experience doing this challenge and left me feeling surprisingly vulnerable, but in a good way, because that was the reason I did the challenge. It’s not like I haven’t been a part of writing groups in the past (albeit not for long) or have done challenges such as this one but I never really allowed myself to really be vulnerable in them and I was more of an observer in those and less of a sharer. With this challenge I actually shared a bit of myself, and while I admit I could’ve shared a lot more (something I have to work on) for me it was still a huge step. I got to interact with some extremely talented individuals who allowed themselves to be equally as vulnerable.

I feel like I’ve been missing that interaction with other creative minded people because at one point in my life I was consistently in the orbit of a couple of select people who were creative like me and we bounced ideas off each other and gave each other feedback. Then suddenly the few select creative minded people had vanished. I mean they were still around but their lives blossomed into a different direction and they moved away and got busy and their careers bloomed and they went on to find groups of other creative minded people where they were now at and I was still stuck. It was no one’s fault or anything, just that it was their turn to bloom and grow and it wasn’t mine (yet). I still love them and I root for them but I had lost that outlet and I haven’t found a new one yet.

The recent challenge I did got my creative brain really flowing again and I loved every day of it and the people that I connected with there. Now I’m in the right mind-set to prepare for National Novel Writing Month and that excites me so much because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to participate this year for lack of creative inspiration. Now if I don’t write here anymore this month it’s not because I’m not writing at all because I’ll be outlining my novel for NaNoWriMo. I will also be blogging at least three times a week in the month of November as I go through the NaNoWriMo experience and hopefully a few of you will join me in doing NaNoWriMo as well. Until next time…. Keep Writing!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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Perfection Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

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Perfection Is not what its cracked up to be

Let’s talk about perfection! I think everyone, at some point in their careers, wishes for things to go perfectly. Even when logically people know that the best things that are worth having almost never come easy and that the things that come easy almost never last, people still want a smooth road to their destination. When we allow that need for perfection to keep us from going after our goals and achieving what we ultimately want it becomes more of a hindrance than a help.

I know all about striving for perfection but when I look at where that has honestly gotten me thus far, I don’t particularly like what I see. I have so many projects, books, concepts that are formulated in my mind. I plan them out, then re-plan them, and then outline the ideas to map everything out about two or three times. Then, because things still don’t seem to be fitting perfectly together just the way that I want them to, those plans, books, and concepts get stored away somewhere in a file cabinet where most ideas go to die (or get dug up years later). I think I’ve had at least two ideas of television shows that I never fleshed out and actually developed because I couldn’t get the ideas to perfectly come together in my mind and then years later I see television shows almost mirroring those ideas already created by someone else who probably didn’t wait for their idea to be completely perfect to get it done.

This is what happens when you wait on perfection. Someone else has a similar idea and they just simply get it done, perfect or not. I’ve been working really hard lately on not having to have every idea that comes to mind be perfect for me to get started working on it. I realize that perfection is not always the best thing because nothing can ever truly be perfect. There’s always going to be a tweak that could be made here, and possibly another minor adjustment there, and as a writer even when you hand over your masterpiece that may be perfect in your eyes to an editor, there is undoubtedly going to be something that that editor will see that won’t be perfect in their eyes and will need to be changed anyway.

So if you are sitting on an idea for a book, for a program, for a brand, for a song, or anything that you’re passionate about, stop sitting on it. Just say to hell with perfection and get started on it. No one will ever see it anyway if you don’t just put it out there, perfect or not. Odds are the less perfect the better!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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Trying to Get Unblocked

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Trying to get Unblocked

It’s been a long time since I’ve really written anything, well posted anything here at least. I don’t know why I’ve been so blocked lately but I just know that I have not been the writer that I have envisioned myself being. It was certainly not for the lack of ideas, nor the lack of wanting to just sit down and write.

I even made the excuse that for over half of the time that I haven’t written anything was due to the fact that my computer that I had died and I was unable to write anything but when someone got me the early birthday gift of another laptop there was no other technical excuse.

Every time I would sit down to write I would just be suddenly stricken with this intense creative blockage and nothing would come to mind and certainly nothing came out of my fingertips onto the page. I have been documenting the ideas that I’ve had for the last several months but it didn’t help with the blockage. I actually almost talked myself out of writing this blog post today because I was afraid that if I sat down at this keyboard, once again, nothing would come out.

Even though this is not exactly the eloquent blog post I would’ve liked to have written for you today, I guess I have to take comfort in the fact that it is a step in the right direction. I hope that I can get back into the swing of things as far as my writing is concerned because I have way too many things to get accomplished to continue allowing this blockage to get the better of me. Particularly since I’ve been creatively blocked somehow for the better part of this year.

I have half a year’s worth of plans to catch up on and I know I need to get my act together and push past this blockage. I’m crossing my fingers that I can just jump back into this whirlwind of these goals I have for my writing career. So here goes everything!!!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

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The Creativity Is Not So Lost Anymore

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Creativity was lost now found

So over the weekend I started to get such a flood of ideas going through my mind. New ideas, old ideas in a renewed form, even ideas that made me realize that they should be let go. It was almost like every hour or so I would think of a novel that I was previously working on and just stopped and I would remember how excited I was about that idea when it first came to me and the excitement came rushing back. Or I would get this new idea for a novel or for the television series idea that I am conjuring up, and that would excite me.

I feel like the creativity that I thought I was slowly losing is rapidly coming back or maybe it was just a little lost because I was starting to feel a little lost. I truly think this has a lot to do with my going back to the gym at the beginning of this year and my remaining consistent with that and also with my promise that I would do something, at least one thing, each month that is solely for me and me alone. I feel like my confidence is coming back, my energy is coming back, and I’m taking care of me and I can’t lie and say that it doesn’t feel good to do that.

Now all I want to do is create more time to write and work on these wonderful ideas that I have. I have been under-producing for way too long and I am just ready to get back at it and get these ideas out of my head and onto paper. I haven’t felt this rush of creativity in quite a long time and it feels really good. I only hope that I don’t get so bogged down by all of the ideas that I get discouraged by the time that it is going to take to put towards actually seeing them through.

Writing is about balance, juggling the ideas, with the actual production, to the follow through as it pertains to publishing. This is a balance I have yet to figure out yet but I know that I don’t want to lose this surge of creativity that I feel right now, at this moment. It feels good!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Is a Cluttered Mind a Bad Thing?

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cluttered mind

I feel the ideas racing through my mind again. The problem is that they are not all for the same story or project. I have about 3 different books that I am currently working on (of course at different times) but I also have 2 more books in my mind in which the characters are coming to me but I am not totally sure what story they are trying to tell me yet. One is a historical fiction novel I know, set in a time period in which I have always been fascinated with, World War II. The other is something of the paranormal genre and would be totally new for me but the character keeps appearing.

My problem has never been lack of ideas for stories or that I couldn’t hear the characters as they spoke to me. It’s always been that there were just way too many ideas and way too many people speaking all at once and not from the same story. My problem has also always been that characters seem to appear when I am in the middle of telling a different character’s story and the new one, like a new baby, wants all of my attention, so I tend to leave some novels in the middle to go start a new story. That is something that I am working heavily on correcting because with that method, no one’s story gets told.

Today I have to admit that my productivity isn’t as great as it has been the last two days because all I want to do is read and research and listen to the characters and the stories that they are trying to tell me. I haven’t even played my music like I normally do while trying to get work done because I just wanted to listen to the characters. But I am trying not to feel guilty for not working on the many things I know I need to be working on right now. I can’t help that I just woke up feeling like today I just needed to do more listening and thinking, and reading.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Has Your Big Idea Escaped You?

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Have you ever had that one idea that has stayed in the back of your mind for years and that for one reason or another you just never brought to a reality?  I’ve had this business idea for a while now (I’ll share what it is at another point in time), something that will help to further my brand and that writers and book lovers everywhere would love, and something that could help to add to my income.

I was really excited about it when I first thought of it and in many ways I still am but what dimmed my excitement a little is the fact that I started to put all of the negatives I have going against me into play.  For this idea I would need a business loan, and for that business loan I probably would need better credit.  Those are the two biggest things stopping me from going ahead with my idea but there are other things too, such as will people actually like it, would they come to it, would I really make as much income as I think it has the potential to bring, will I market it right, and mostly what if I screw it all up somehow.

My best friend, Ms. L. told me the other day that I shouldn’t let those negative stop me and that it is an idea worth going after (and if you knew her you would know she will let you know when something is a bad idea) and that I should go for it.  I’m excited about the idea again just envisioning it in my head but I am still a little worried about all of the barriers that can present themselves.

Is there a point where you should just know that something is outside of the realm of possibility?  Or is there nothing that is outside of the realm of possibility unless you deem it that way?  Do you have any big ideas that your internal barriers are keeping you from going after?

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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Write 2 Be Magazine is now out so please go check it out at http://write2bemagazine.com/.  Also please go and join the magazine on twitter https://twitter.com/write2bemag, join the email listing for the magazine or submit a request for an author interview at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com, and also like the Write 2 Be Magazine fan page https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine.  Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

The Reasons Why My Novel Might Not Be Finished Yet

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I started my current novel some time ago (I’m embarrassed to even say how long ago it was) and it should’ve been finished by now.  In fact I should’ve not only finished that novel but have already been well into the next one.  Nevertheless, I am still not finished yet.  I think that these are some of the reasons that I haven’t finished my novel yet:

  1. Too many ideas
  2. Can’t balance my time effectively
  3. Too ambitious with the projects that I want to accomplish
  4. Too much time spent not writing

In the end they all boil down to excuses that just aren’t good enough but I thought identifying with them would possibly help me finally get to the point where I could perhaps finish the novel.  I believe the biggest reason I can’t seem to finish is the fact that I just have one too many ideas running around in my head; too many characters; too many plots.  I did what I seem to always do.  I get to that point where I am almost at the end (literally, I’m on Chapter 22 of a novel that is supposed to go to chapter 29—of course that could change) and then another idea that I’ve had in my head for sometime starts to become a stronger presence in my subconscious and then it’s the only idea I can concentrate on.

It’s a terrible habit that I have and it almost makes me wish that my problem was having a lack of ideas so the ones I have won’t take over every other project that I am working on.  Perhaps this is another form of writer’s block.  I always thought that it pertained to not having any ideas or inspiration to write at all but I think it might be just as bad to have so many ideas that you can’t focus on just one.  Maybe I can’t seem to finish because it is my first attempt at writing a mystery and I’m nervous it won’t turn out as good as I am hoping.  This is the point where I chuckle at people who seem to think that writing is easy and that all writers do is come up with stories.  It’s so much harder then people think it is.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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Write 2 Be Magazine is now out so please go check it out at http://write2bemagazine.com/.  Also please go and join the magazine on twitter https://twitter.com/write2bemag, join the email listing for the magazine or submit a request for an author interview at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com, and also like the Write 2 Be Magazine fan page https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine.  Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.