Jimmetta Carpenter – Page 33

What Do You Expect When You Are Already Planning to Fail?

July 3, 2013 jcladyluv

“You can not expect victory and plan for defeat”

~Joel Osteen

I saw the above quote and in many ways I felt like it tied so well into what I wrote about yesterday. Something that living in the past causes us to do as well is to play things so safe that we end up planning for the worst that could happen instead of trusting in the best that God has for us.

As I read the quote I realized that when I am making back up plans and when I am cautioning myself for the other shoe to drop I am essentially expecting to be defeated and in turn planning for that defeat. I can’t believe that I never saw it that way. I just always thought I was just preparing for all of the possible scenarios, or for the inevitable pitfalls that can often times happen when we least expect it. Instead I have been discounting my future victory by having the attitude of one that has already been defeated. Yet another way that I have been sabotaging myself without even realizing that was what I was doing.

Why do we have so many back up plans when we claim that we know what it is we want out of our lives? When we already know the purpose that God has put us here for, why would we keep making plans for a different route then the one that he has already mapped out? God didn’t give us our gift so that we can serve his purpose only for us to question the direction that he wants us to take. Had he wanted us to go in the opposite direction he would have steered us that way to begin with.

As I realize the things that I am doing to work against myself and my own goals I make the very best attempts to get back on track and to keep walking in the right direction. I am still a work in progress on trying to conquer the many fears that I have and trying to maintain that unshakable faith in the direction that I am being steered in. When you feel like you are getting off track, don’t plan for what you can do once you’ve been defeated. Instead, plan for how you can get back on track to the purpose that you are destined for. I think that all we can do on our journey is to trust in the direction that God has us walking on enough to plan for our victories instead of preparing for our defeats.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

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.

Stepping Out of the Shadow of Yesterday’s Mistakes and Into Today’s Opportunities

July 2, 2013 jcladyluv

“Don’t dwell on the negative. Program your mind with what God says about you and a transformation will take place.”

~Joel Osteen

We all have past regrets and past pain that we have to live with. We may have even been dealt a bad hand in life that was beyond our control that still haunts us throughout our journey. We tend to go over it in our heads about what we did, what we should have done, what we could have done differently, or what was done to us that we allowed to happen, and we get stuck in that repetitive cycle. Without realizing it, we carry that pain with us and we sometimes stay stuck in our mistakes and we end up hindering our own progress by living our lives with the thoughts of that pain and those mistakes in our minds.

We don’t mean to, but we allow our past to dictate our future in such a way that we actually hold ourselves back. We don’t want to be hurt again so we just don’t allow anyone in and we don’t trust. We don’t want to keep making that same mistake so we become overly cautious to the point of not really living. We don’t want to get rejected as we have been in the past so we just stop trying altogether. We wear those mistakes like a badge of bravery as something to take with us on our journey, something to toughen us up, and we don’t even realize that what we are really doing is settling into our regrets and reliving that past pain constantly. All this does is hold us back in our past instead of moving us forward into our future.

I know that for far too long I let my childhood and the emotional and physical abuse that I endured from my mother hold me back from moving forward. At times I even used it as an excuse for some of the big mistakes that I have made in my life. I have, at different times in my life, used what my mother put me through in my childhood as a reason that I didn’t try to achieve certain goals, all because she said I never would. I have allowed that past pain and my past mistakes to make me so cautious as to not be hurt again or to not make any more monumental mistakes that I end up missing many opportunities. It is true that I couldn’t really control what happened to me as a child but all of the choices made as an adult were mine and mine alone. I got stuck in my past and for so long it kept me from progressing towards my future.

Everyone has something that they regret and that they would go back and change if they could or a past pain that they would erase if given the chance. In order to succeed in accomplishing our goals and our dreams we can’t keep allowing ourselves to be stuck in the mistakes of our past or the pain that we’ve been put through. We have to use those things for the lessons that they are and transform those teachable moments into opportunities to grab ahold of the destiny that God has promised to us. We can’t control the things that have already been done to us but we do have the power over our own choices as to how we move forward into our future. Don’t settle into your past, there’s nothing left there anymore to go back to!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

The Things that I Continue to Sabotage Myself With

June 28, 2013 jcladyluv

“Self-sabotage is like a game of mental tug-of-war. It is the conscious mind versus the subconscious mind where the subconscious mind always eventually wins.”

~Bo Bennett

There is something inside me that keeps allowing me to sabotage myself. You know how you can realize the self-sabotaging behavior that you are committing as you are doing it. You understand that it’s not good for you to criticize everything that it is that you do, or to compare what you do to someone else that you may think is doing things better. You comprehend that there is a better way of doing things, a more effective way of accomplishing what you want but yet you can’t seem to catch yourself before you tear your own efforts apart.

For some people it is really hard to get out of your own head and to think and live with your heart. There’s a lot of risk in doing that, in just going for it and taking a leap of faith in yourself, but it is worth it when you do. It’s so easy to have a leap of faith in what others can do but we can’t seem to put all that faith into ourselves.

I keep feeling convinced that I finally have it, the unlimited faith in myself and my abilities to do whatever it is without question. But then I get that nagging voice in my head that won’t shut up and it tells me all of these negative things that I somehow start to believe, if only for a moment. They hold me up from making progress, and they hold me back from my destination. So I thought I would share with you what I keep struggling with and what still, despite my efforts for them not to, keeps allowing me to sabotage myself.

1) I’m still riddled with fear, both of the possibility that I will fail and also of the pressure of actually succeeding

2) I sometimes still don’t believe that I am good enough

3) I still can’t seem to put myself first without feeling extreme guilt about it

4) I don’t believe the good things that people have to say about me

5) I keep letting what I don’t have get in the way of what it is that I want to achieve

6) I am terrified of change and not knowing what is next

7) I say No way more than I allow myself to say Yes

I realize that being confident in yourself and in your own abilities to make things happen is not a practice that is just inherited and that you are born with. It is something that you have to work hard at. It is a practice that you have to maintain and treat as a routine occurrence in your everyday life. Particularly for those who may not have a positive support system, or may not have ever had very much of one, it is a struggle to believe that you deserve the best.

When you have so many obstacles that stop you along the way that you lose count, you can tend to get jaded in your thought process and in your effectiveness within your work. It’s not something that most people have not experienced and it is probably a problem that isn’t going away any time soon.

I am working on an ebook (details on how you can get a copy coming soon) on how we as writers, artists, or creative types in general can start to get out of our own way and stop sabotaging our own dreams and our own business endeavors with this self-doubt that we create in our own heads. We have to stop being so in our heads and start living from our hearts. We have to stop second guessing everything and changing our own minds or basing our level of success on what someone else’s is. Life is so short and tomorrow is not promised to us so we have to get out of our own way and start making the best of our life now, not some day in the not so distant (or distant depending on who you are) future, but right in the moment that you are in.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

My Journey is My Own

June 27, 2013 jcladyluv

I try not to compare my journey to the journey of others and I try not to be envious of the opportunities that I see other people receive and then just throw away. I know that it is something that you are not supposed to do and it really doesn’t do any good because it doesn’t make your journey any more or less complicated than what it already is.

It gets hard when you see people in the media who seem to be throwing their wonderful opportunities that they have worked so hard to attain right down the drain. But then I remind myself that my path is mine for a reason. It is constructed however God decided to construct it and the obstacles that fall in my path are what God is using to prepare me for the next level of my journey that he already has mapped out.

I just have to keep fighting for my opportunities and removing my obstacles one at a time until I reach the destination that is in store for me. I really have to start remembering not to regret the mistakes or the bumps along the path because those will be the same mistakes and bumps that are going to catapult me to my highest destination possible. I suppose that I should stop wishing for another journey because then I may not like the results that come along with the change.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Does the Reality of Being a Writer Take the Creativity Out of Being an Artist?

June 26, 2013 jcladyluv

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

~Ray Bradbury

I was thinking about when I first realized that writing was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. There’s something about what power words hold. To think of how you can change people’s lives, and perhaps even reflect changes within yourself with something as simple as words.

I remember when I first started writing poetry and jotting down ideas for novels that I didn’t know how to begin just yet. I remember knowing that someday I wanted to be published, even a New York Times Bestseller, but at that moment writing was just fun for me. Well maybe fun is the wrong word, freeing would be more like it. It was a way for me to express emotions that it didn’t seem okay for me to express to anyone else. It was a way for me to cry out about some of my childhood experiences without actually screaming out loud. It was how I displayed the real me.

I was ten when I started writing and even all the way through high school there was no pressure. I wasn’t shopping anything around to publishers and agents hoping to be in bookstores (not then anyway). However, with the desire to be published came so much pressure and so many fears and yes even unrealistic expectations. I think I thought back then that someone would just read my work and see me on a page and accept everything that I put before them but that was very unrealistic. What was also unrealistic in my thinking back then was that being a writer didn’t involve some sense of business savvy to go along with it.

Being a writer when you are young and only focused on the creative aspect of it is simple, easy, freeing. There’s no pressure involved and no headaches with trying to figure out how to make it work for you financially and still keep your artistic integrity. Making a full-time career out of being a writer is hard, and it takes work, and it places a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

I have days where I truly feel like the reality of being a writer and thinking about marketing and promotion and how to earn more money doing what I love to do has in some way stripped away the joy of actually writing and creating plots and stories that will captivate people. I made quite a few mistakes in my journey to get published that I would change now if I could go back but I suppose that instead of regretting them I could treat them for the lessons that they have become.

Maybe some days I should just take time to go back to being that writer in high school who didn’t have the pressure of trying to be a widely successful writer. I think that focusing on the creativity some days instead of stressing over the business of it all will possibly allow me to get back to actually being productive in my writing. So my question to you guys out there is this: Do you ever think that having to be your own business person as a writer gets in the way of your creativity as a writer? Were you a better writer before you tried to make it your business?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

When You Feel Your Passion is Slipping Away: 4 Ways to Reignite Your Passion for Your Craft

June 19, 2013 jcladyluv

Every now and then some (not all) writers start to feel like they may be losing their passion for the craft. It most likely isn’t because they actually don’t want to write anymore. Rather because they are stalled in the current project that they are working on. The answer is not to start separating yourself from your craft, or to give up altogether.

Yes sometimes you may need to take a small step back but make sure that it is a very tiny step and not you completely letting something you love drift away from you. I want to give some suggestions of some things that you could do to spark that passion inside of you again that you might feel is weaning.

1) Go back and read a few or all of the books that made you want to be a writer in the first place

2) Go through things that you have written in the past. Go as far back as some of the first pieces of writing that you did.

3) Watch movies that inspire you and your love of writing. Whether it is movies about writers or writing in general, or whether it is a movie that provides you with inspiration for the screenplay you want to write, something that sparks your creativity for a story line of your own.

4) Do something that fuels your creativity. Go to a museum, go to an art show, go see a play, go to a writer’s conference, or if you are into nature, just take a walk and observe the things around you.

I know that feeling when you start to question everything you thought you knew about your talent and your writing abilities. You start to feel like you aren’t as passionate about this as you used to be. You begin to wonder if the fact that your current project is stalled or that you’ve just been hit with writer’s block means you’re no longer supposed to be writing. You’re not as productive as you once were.

None of this is a reason for you to just give up on your dream. It’s a reason for you to find that spark again and reignite that passion that you had to begin with. If you are feeling a little unproductive and like your love for writing is in question, your passion is not gone. It may just be a little lost, but it can be found again. Keep going and find a way to reignite that spark.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Honoring Your Testimonies for the Stepping Stones that They Are

June 18, 2013 jcladyluv

I’ve done it more times than I can count. Not only that but I never even gave a second thought as to what it is I was really doing. I’ve wished away all of the bad things that have ever happened to me at one point of my life or another and I’ve regretted so many past mistakes that were made and wonder what if I could go back and change things. It really is no way to live, always wanting a do-over and never wanting to make one single misstep. Knowing what I know now, after much growing and lots of learning, honestly if I could I may just go back and make even more mistakes in my life, on purpose.

I know that sounds crazy. However, if you really think about it, can you really say that all of your mistakes and blunders did not get you any kind of unexpected reward or bless you in some way that you didn’t even know that you needed it. The more mistakes that you make the more life lessons that you learn and there can never be enough lessons learned in life. But most importantly, if you have lived a perfect life, a life with not one mistake and not one regret, did you really live life at all. Can you really enjoy life taking such careful steps in it that you never step out of bounds?

When I think about the not so ideal childhood that I had and all of the things that I once would have liked to forget, they were some of the toughest things I have ever been through. While they weren’t pleasant and certainly not perfect, looking back, they made me stronger and I believe now that they were a part of the preparation that I needed in order to eventually fulfill my purpose. I don’t think that I would be the person that I am now without the struggles that I went through then or even the ones that I have recently experienced.

Our mistakes, the things we regret, the obstacles that we struggle to get through, they are what builds our character. They strengthen us for the greatness that we are destined to achieve. They help to prepare us for the journey that we are on to fulfill our purpose. They provide little blessings along the way that we would have never had otherwise. So stop regretting the mistakes you’ve made in the past. Don’t treat them as events that have held you back, treat them as the stepping stones that can propel you forward. With great risks comes even greater rewards.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Sometimes You Have to Take a Step Back Just to Realize How Much You’ve Grown

June 13, 2013 jcladyluv

I realize that I have slacked off a lot lately in my writing. Or at least that is what I think until I realize that I have kept up pretty well with this blog and other articles that I am writing for other blogs and publications. Let’s not forget that I am still in school finishing up a Master’s degree so that is not to be taken lightly. I am really hard on myself. I am my own worst critic but then again I think most of us are highly critical of ourselves. But when do we ever stop to take a step back to really look at the progress that we have made.

I was talking to Ms. L. last night and we were talking about our journey’s and I was telling her that while I know that most people don’t understand certain choices that I have made, and if I am being honest some days it doesn’t make sense to me either, but I feel like the path I am walking is the one that I am meant to walk. It may be unconventional (that would be putting it mildly) and it may not be the most common sense choice (to other people who don’t have to walk in my shoes) but I just know that it is the right one.

I told Ms. L. last night that when I do reach my destiny, when I achieve the purpose that God has for me, it will all make sense and then everyone will wonder why they ever questioned my choices. Truthfully they weren’t solely my mine. They were what I was being guided to do. Knowing who I am and that what God has for me is nothing but good, I have to trust the path that I am on.

I am working on not being so harsh on myself and on the lack of productiveness that I feel is taking place within my work right now. I just have to remind myself to take a step back every once and a while. Survey everything I’ve accomplished, everything that I have been through and the person that I have grown into. I have to acknowledge that everything may not be the way I want it to be right now and I may not be in the position that I feel I should be in right now but I am right where I should be and everything is just as it should be. It’s the way God has designed it to be.

When you think you’re not doing enough, that you haven’t moved an inch, take a step back and just look at where you were compared to where you are now. I guarantee you that, even if it is small, you will see a difference!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Are You Nurturing Your Writing Craft?

June 12, 2013 jcladyluv

So I’ve been sitting here thinking about all of the novels that I have started and not finished in the past. I love when I go back and read something that I’ve written and I start to think “I wrote this” in amazement that it actually reads like something other than mess that I thought it would read like. But there are the works that I have almost, but never completed that I will read over again and see that the person that wrote that specific piece of writing definitely needed some work and to study her craft.

Over the years I have done just that. I have picked up and read any book that I could get my hands on about specific genres that I wanted to learn about writing, or books on technique and point of view. There are so many ways that I feel I can nurture my craft and make myself an even better, and a more confident writer. I consider my writing to always be a work in progress. I think that when you are a writer, you are never really finished learning when it comes to your craft. I wanted to share with you some ways that you can work on nurturing your craft as a writer.

1) Of course read books on your craft or the craft that you want to direct yourself towards writing. Whether it is mystery, young adult, science fiction, suspense, drama, or even plays, study it.

2) Make sure to read the kinds of books that you are trying to write. If you want to be a mystery writer, then read as many mystery books as you can get your hands on. If you want to write young adult novels then read plenty of young adult books. No matter what you do, just read!

3) Research other writers. Not just their writing, but research their lives, their philosophies, their values. Research how they achieved and maintained their success.

4) Attend writing conferences and workshops to learn things about your craft from a different perspective. There is only so much that you can learn from a book without visibly seeing someone who has put these techniques into practice.

5) Pay attention to the work that is being produced that is along the lines of what you want to do. If writing movies is your thing, watch the movies that inspire you and that have made you want to write films in the first place. If it is plays, then go see as many plays as you can feasibly manage to go and see. You have to be able to see that what you want to create is possible and a reality that you can make happen if you want to badly enough.

Writing, despite what some people might think, is something that is not easy to do. It’s not as if you can just pick up a pen (or open up a computer) and just start writing seamlessly. It takes research, and preparation, and a lot of time and writing is certainly not for people who want to make a quick dollar (that’s not to say that you can’t make money writing).

It is easy to get comfortable within our writing and our own style of writing and sometimes we forget that to grow we have to keep nurturing our skills as a writer, keep sharpening them, so to speak. You don’t want to get stuck writing the same thing every time you work on a new project. You don’t want readers to read book after book of yours and start to think that your writing is predictable and like they are reading the same type of book every time they pick yours up. Don’t stay in that comfortable spot within your writing.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Don’t Fight the Challenges That Are Meant to Prepare You for Your Purpose

June 11, 2013 jcladyluv

“Since the Lord is directing our steps, why do we try to figure out everything that happens along the way?”

~Proverbs 20:24

So last week was not one of my better weeks. I will even admit that things were going so much in the opposite direction of the way I wanted them to go that I had gotten a little bit angry with God (crazy I know, but I can’t be the only one that has) for not allowing things to happen the way that I had expected them to. Of course it didn’t take long for me to realize that that was the wrong attitude to have and to remember that God would never give me more than he thought I could handle.

When I was watching Joel Osteen on Sunday morning (and I did not intend to watch it, it was on a channel that it normally doesn’t even come on) he delivered a message that, once again, was right on time for me and that put everything into perspective. He essentially said that in worrying about your struggles and in getting frustrated about your circumstances you are not trusting God and the fact that he knows what he is doing and that he has already mapped out your entire life, bumps and bruises included. Sometimes God uses our struggles and our tough times to strengthen us and to prepare us for the next level of what he has planned for our lives, for our purpose.

Our wanting to be comfortable and have nothing but constant victory is unrealistic and when I think about it, is probably not for the best. Our struggles and our bad times, that’s what builds character in us. Those are the times when God shows us what we are made of and where sometimes we even surprise ourselves on how well things turn out once you’ve come out on the other side. If we keep fighting the circumstances that make us uncomfortable and that seem impossible to get through we just might miss all of the wonderful things that can happen along the way as a result of those challenges.

We pray for things and when our prayers don’t get answered we get so frustrated and discouraged (this very much includes me) but I have been thinking lately, especially since watching Joel Osteen, maybe those prayers that don’t get answered are God showing us just how much he loves us. There are things that are just not meant for us to have or to experience and God, being the one who sees everything in our future, just might be protecting us by not answering our prayers to begin with.

So while my situation has not yet improved, I am going to start embracing where I am now, and just be grateful for the moment that I am in. I am going to try to remember that sometimes having to be outside of my comfort zone can be a really good thing and it can also be preparing me for the next phase in my life. Don’t fight the divine delays that God is using to prepare you for your destiny. Live where you are, not where you feel you should be!