Tag: Jimmetta Carpenter

The First Time Around

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”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Riding Around On a Near Empty Tank

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”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Is a Writer’s Desk Ever Really Free of Clutter?

jcladyluv

It’s about that time for the re-organization fairy to come in and clean my office area again.  Okay no really it seems like it needs to be done every three or four months and I don’t know about anyone else but it is hard to work in clutter, especially when it is clutter of your own making.  

My clutter comes from piling the incoming mail into my little inbox trays and letting it all stack up each and every week without ever tossing any of the junk that needs to be trashed out.  It also comes from trying to work on more than a few projects at one time so therefore everything in reference to each project, research, outlines and things of that nature, end up in a pile to the side of my desk and it starts to look a little bit similar to the mail file, accept none of it is junk.  

It is time for me to get my desk back in the order that I would like it to be in and this time devise a plan for it to stay that way.  But am I kidding myself to think that my desk can ever really remain clean and orderly?  Perhaps a writer’s desk is never truly clean of all clutter but when it starts to hinder the progress that you are making (or rather not making) then it becomes a problem.  

It’s so distracting that I have not even really done work at my desk for the last few weeks.  I’ve simply gathered up my laptop, and my notepad and notes on certain projects and toted them out to my dining room table, which is nice and clean, and I work there but I am really starting to miss my desk.  

I miss my chair (well currently it’s broke thanks to my daughter hopping in and out of it like it’s a bean-bag chair) and more importantly I miss feeling like a successful writer/business woman working in her own office (area).  That’s what working at my desk does for me.  I’ve seen pictures of writers working happily in a cluttered space and they genuinely look happy and at peace with the mess.  I just don’t know how they do it.  I suppose I should be happy that I’ve been doing a good job of working on my novel for Camp NaNoWriMo so I can’t say that the dining room table is a bad fix but, I miss my desk.   

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Mood For Thought

jcladyluv

I did not wake up in the best of moods this morning.  I was in a funk and to be honest I am still in one.  I had hoped that the run I did on the treadmill this morning would help but it didn’t.  I got some work done on my novel (thank God for that) and I went to the grocery store to shop for some decadent goodies to make me feel better.  

However, as I was sitting here contemplating on the reasons for the mood that I am in I started to question myself as to why I was filling up my precious, already over extended time with thoughts of what is making me feel depressed and making me feel inadequate.  Why am I giving those negative thoughts so much power?  Why am I not taking this mood that I woke up with this morning and throwing myself into any piece of work that I can get my hands on in order to keep my mind focused on what is important and on what matters the most?  

I mean sure a piece of pie or ice cream (or both) will make me feel better in the moment but then when they are gone the problem is still there.  And so is the work that needed to be done that I just let pile up because I decided to let my mood hold me back.  I do get in some really funky moods often and I always let them take over.  It’s time that I start learning to take my moods and turn them into a source of productivity instead of a point of being stuck.   

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

There is No Comparison To Be Made

jcladyluv

So I have begun CampNaNoWriMo as of last Wednesday and I was right that it would help me get focused again on my novel.  I haven’t necessarily written the amount of words I should have written by this point but I have gotten back into the story and my mind has started swirling ideas around regarding the outcome of my character.  

My words are coming along much better then I thought they would but I do still have that feeling every once and a while of wishing that I could write like…well any of the writers who crank out more than three or four novels in a year.  That list would contain some of my favorites like Joyce Carol Oates and James Patterson and Eric Jerome Dickey and Zane.  

I keep thinking to myself I wish I could do whatever it is that they do to produce the amount of work that they produce.  Then I remind myself that I have to stop comparing myself to other writers because I am not them, but rather the best version of myself that I can be.  I do that a lot you know.  Think that so many other people have it better than I do and have so much more than I do or that they seem to be able to be so much better at writing or succeeding in general than I am.  

I try not to compare having the old saying in the back of my mind that the grass is not always greener on the other side, but it’s hard when you see others who just look like they have it all, like they have all the answers to the questions that I keep asking.  But just like other people don’t know my story and my struggles, I do not know theirs either.  I don’t know what they had to go through to get where they are and what they have to continue going through now that they’ve gotten where I seemingly would like to be.   

It is a slow process but I am learning to take stock in what I have and what I can do because the truth is that there is no comparison to be made here.  I am me, not anybody else and what I have is for me to have or for me to struggle with.  I have to keep in mind that I shouldn’t wish for anyone else’s journey.  These struggles and this journey of mine is what was meant for me to travel and I am going to take stock in every bump in the road along the way until I get to the destination that was meant for me.  

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Are You Living Your Life Or The Life Someone Else Thinks You Should Be Living?

jcladyluv

I love my emails that I get from the Tyler Perry mailing list.  I swear it’s as if he knows when I need to hear a specific message and writes them just for me.  Like he was somehow the vessel that God chose (one of the many vessels) to send me a very bold and clear message.  He sent a message that didn’t mince words and didn’t beat around the bush by sugar coating things.  The subject title in this particular email was simple: Don’t let anybody define you!    

His email talked about how when he was a young boy he had so many people tell him that he would never make it, that he would never become a millionaire because he was black or because he was poor.  Among those many people there was actually a teacher and even some of his family.  I understood exactly what he was talking about because I have always been told that I would never amount to anything by the one person who is supposed to think the world of me, my mother.  

Now there are plenty of others who have said things like I dream too big, and I am never going to become successful, and I’m always going to be in a state of struggle, and basically that all of my efforts to become successful and to build my own company doing what I love to do and what I know is meant for me to do are for nothing.  I would like to say that I haven’t listened to those words of discouragement and that I responded to those negative voices in a way that Tyler Perry did, by ignoring them and doing it anyway.  But I can’t say that because I have spent the better part of my life trying to defy what I was told I couldn’t do all the while, deep down, believing in what those voices were saying.  

I have since learned to tune out those voices (for the most part anyway) but every once and a while, mostly when I have a new idea or a new way to develop and produce the ideas I already have, those voices do get deep inside my head and sometimes they even manage to convince me that they are right, but only for a little while.  When I read this message from Tyler Perry, it came after I had just finished brainstorming an idea with Ms. L. on how to bring one of my dreams on my list of accomplishments to fruition and those doubts began to creep in on whether or not I could really do this.  

I shared some brief ideas with another person that I thought could possibly help me in one area of making my idea a reality but they essentially told me every possible thing that could go wrong and that could keep me from being able to do it.  Not what I needed to hear.  I know everything that can go wrong.  I know that I am operating on little to no money most times and that my credit might not be so hot to a bank or possible investors.  So What?  

I am finally starting to realize that if I am constantly waiting for the money fairy to rain some money on my dream then I might never make it happen.  I have to have faith that it will happen, not just because it is a really good idea, but because it was what was meant for me to do.  God didn’t give me this gift for nothing and he sure doesn’t expect me to waste it.  So I’m not going to waste it.  

It’s hard to think that you have to tune out the people who are supposed to be close to you but if they can’t support me in living the life that I want to live then I don’t need to listen to words that aren’t driving me forward.  I’m done living the way everyone else thinks I should.  I can’t live the life other people would rather me live because that wasn’t the life that was meant for me.  Whose life are you living, yours or someone else’s? 

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Gearing Up For Another Writing Marathon

jcladyluv

So a few posts ago I wrote about doing Camp NaNoWriMo this August so that I can not only finish my novel that I started in last November’s NaNoWriMo but also so that I can get my writing groove back.  Although you might think that I wouldn’t have to do the same necessary steps to prepare for this that I did in November because at least this time I am not starting from scratch, that is far from the truth.  

Even though I don’t have to come up with an outline and create character sketches I still have to get a handle on my time management.  Not only am I just getting my bearings within my Master’s in Psychology program and but I am really trying to work on some freelance work and trying to pitch certain magazines and increase the success of my business, throw a novel in the mix along with the everyday fulltime job of being a mom.  Not to mention, I have just thought of another business idea that has some real true potential to make me and my family some money and could launch a lot of things for me, and I have to start putting in the research for that quickly.  

I already know what my issue is that I have to work on during this coming month of August, time management.  I suppose this will mean a lot less TV and telephone (accept for my very necessary conversations with Ms. L. that tend to turn into brainstorming sessions) and a lot more late nights—and by late nights I mean one’s that are productive late nights and not me catching up on my TV.  Thank goodness for my DVR.  Well I have a lot of organizing of my time to go figure out and I hope that some of you out there click on the link in the post for CampNaNoWriMo and join in on the writing challenge with me.  Tomorrow begins the rest of my novel.  Yay!

 

 

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

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

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”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Could Reality TV Be the Next Best Marketing Strategy?

jcladyluv

The other night Ms. L. and I were talking about reality television.  You know the usual, what train wrecks are worth watching and what is just simply too much drama even for us.  We both talked about how we are not really ‘Reality TV show watchers’ even though there were some that had managed to reel us in over a period of time.  I’ll give Ms. L. credit in the fact that she hasn’t been as reeled in as I have.  

There was a time that if the caption about the TV show said reality I would instantly turn away and wouldn’t even give it a second look.  But then I realized something that I think some people still have not caught onto yet.  Reality TV is not truly Reality.  I mean think about it, they have writers on Reality TV shows (why if the show is in fact unscripted as they try to convince us).  Not only that but there is a whole lot of editing film to make the show’s end result look just real enough to not look like most other television shows and yet still fake enough to know that this much drama could not possibly happen this often to this person.  

But the reality shows that I truly love the most are the one’s with a purpose at the end of it.  You know, the competition one’s like America’s Next Top Model, Hell’s Kitchen, Master Chef, HGTV Design Star, Food Network Star, those types of shows.  However, I have been thinking a lot lately about what a Reality TV show can do for a person who might be trying to make a name for themselves and isn’t having much luck at getting their name out there.  If you think about it, these people (you know, the one’s who are at the center of all the drama) are actually smarter then we give them credit for.  

Let’s take Snookie from Jersey Shore for example.  If she ever decides to stop boozing it up and grows up (hopefully before her child gets here) and she decided that she wanted to start a new business, she doesn’t have to worry about getting her name out there, it already is.  Everyone and anyone knows who she is and like her or hate her, she has made probably millions off of the drama that she is the center of.  She could literally forge any type of career she wants all because of her stints on reality TV.  

It just makes you wonder, just how easy could it be for any one of us to make the name for ourselves that we want.  I’m in no way, shape, or form, interested in ever being a part of a reality show (not that I think anyway) but that is largely in part because I care way too much about what people think of me.  But if I had the nerve, I can’t say that it wouldn’t be a consideration.  Hell these days with the new phenomenon of web series on YouTube you could really start your own.  I mean personally I think that there are way more talented people out here then the Snookies and Kardasians of the world that could stand to make a name for themselves.  Reality could be the next new way that people can market and brand themselves and become the household name that they want to be.  Would you ever consider starting or being a part of a reality show so everyone can know your name? 

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Too Many Stories to Juggle, Not Enough Discipline To Keep Them All From Falling

jcladyluv

It’s starting to happen again.  All of these different ideas and characters are circling around inside my head and trying to tell me all of their stories, ALL at once.  Now I know what many writers may possibly be thinking.  How could this possibly be a problem?  In fact a lot of writers have the opposite problem, no ideas and no characters speaking to them.  

Well the problem that presents itself is that I have yet to finish the novel that I started writing last November for National Novel Writing Month.  I have no idea why I haven’t because it’s not as if I’ve lost interest in telling the stories of those characters.  In fact I am very intrigued to see if the main character in that novel will end up how I once thought she might end up.  It’s not as if she hasn’t been begging me to finish telling her story either, in fact I think she may just have some adjustments that could change a lot of what was going to happen.  

My problem is that I am a serial story hopper.  It’s not that I have never finished a novel.  In fact I am actually a published author (although you wouldn’t know it due to my inability to do a better job at marketing myself—yet another thing I must work on sooner rather than later).  I actually have another novel that is also completed that is currently in the hands of my editor now.  However, if you had any idea of the novels I have already started and stopped because I had another story enter my head and another character that kept shouting at me to tell it, you would probably laugh at my lack of discipline.  

That’s what it is, a lack of discipline to stick with one story from start to finish.  But how do you silence the characters that come to you in the midst of telling another character’s story that has nothing to do with theirs?  I mean you can’t completely ignore the ideas that come because if you lose them you might never get them back again.  On the other hand feeding into the constantly flowing stream of ideas is the reason why I have at least 5 or 6 novels started but left unfinished.  

I read one article that suggested writing down the ideas as they come and then setting them aside to finish the current project.  The problem I have with that idea is that once I get started writing that idea out, then I start sketching the characters, then I start to outline the story and the setting.  Next thing you know I’ve moved completely from one story to the next.  So what am I going to do about it?  

Well it seems that when I knew I was under the pressure of National Novel Writing Month I had no problem sticking to my one story.  So NaNoWriMo is having this thing they call CampNaNoWriMo where they do the same thing they do in November, just in June and August as well.  Since I’ve already missed June’s, I am going to do the one that they have in August.  

Technically you are supposed to start a new novel from scratch but I think that I am going to use the one in August to finish the one I started last November.  Perhaps that will give me some focus and discipline and then I can finally complete this novel before moving on to the next one.  Who knows, I might just finish this one and move on to another one that I already started earlier and finish that one up too.  Discipline is extremely key to a writer’s work because without it you would just be all over the place with more stories going on than any one person can handle.  Kind of like me! 

 

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress