Tag: Motivation

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The Support Around You

January 11, 2012 jcladyluv

Ms. L wrote a blog post the other night about hustling hard for what you want out of life. I will say that she has got to be the best hustler I know. When she sets her mind to something and decides that it’s going to happen, she makes it happen, one way or another. She is a perfect example of the type of friend and person in general that you want surrounding you when you are on a mission to greatness. They say that birds of a feather flock together and when I was in high school I never understood what that really meant, nor how true that statement was.

My mother used to hear about certain people that I associated with in high school doing something they didn’t have any business doing, and she would just automatically assume that I was doing the same things (which I wasn’t). She said that if you surround yourself with certain types of people then that’s the type of person people will think you are. At the time I thought that it was her being highly judgmental and unfair. I felt that if you liked someone or at least a lot of their attributes then there shouldn’t be a problem being their friend even if the two of you were total opposites on everything. I learned as I grew into an adult that my mother (I cringe as I say this) was right.

You don’t want the people in your circle to be exactly like you (that would just be boring) but you do want them to be people who understand you and your goals and ambitions and who are as ambitious about whatever they want as you are. You want people surrounding you that are like-minded and that are going to push you when you need a push. You need people who have their own sense of direction and motivate you to find and follow yours.

A writer in particular needs a good source of support and motivation in the people that they associate with. While I have other good supportive people in my circle that motivate me in various ways (as I hopefully motivate them), none of them I admire quite as much as Ms. L. Her post the other night about hustling harder (and our conversation that came afterwards) gave me great encouragement and motivation.

I am probably not the best hustler in terms of going after everything I want with extreme vigor but because I am not, it is good to have someone in my corner, in my circle, who is. Someone who can be a model example of the kind of hustling I should be doing. Surrounding yourself with the right people, as a writer, is vitally important and should be something that you should definitely reevaluate if you haven’t before. I thank Ms. L for being the kind of friend and fellow writer that I can take a multitude of notes from and for not being stingy with your secrets along your pathway to success. I hope all of you out there have someone in your circle that pushes you to be your very best. Until tomorrow…If you haven’t already, make sure you have your support team in place!

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 When No One Is Looking

December 26, 2011 jcladyluv

So I didn’t necessarily feel like blogging today but I’ve already taken a two day break over the Christmas holiday and I didn’t want to risk missing anymore. I was having trouble figuring out what to write about today and I found that I wasn’t feeling all that motivated because I took a look at the stats of my blog and saw that there weren’t that many people reading what I had to say to begin with. I think I need for my best friend Ms. L. to share her secrets with me because she can go from having a bad blog day to a good blog day in a matter of minutes with just one post. Maybe it’s just not my blog moment yet. I guess that I just have to wait my turn in that area too. It feels like I always seem to be waiting for my turn at something. Well they say that the best things come to those who wait and since I don’t plan on ever giving up on writing, I guess I’ll just keep on blogging and writing my novels and doing whatever else my journey as a writer brings to me even if no one is looking (or in this case reading). Until tomorrow…Always do what you love doing whether people are watching or not!

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

Let Me Not Wallow Anymore

October 5, 2011 jcladyluv

“There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning.”

~E.J. Klemme

I was thinking the other night, yet again, about how bad things are and how I can almost see that light at the end of the tunnel but I’m getting frustrated because I feel as if that light should be much closer by now. I was thinking of how I just wish things, for once, could be going the way that I need for them to go. What I was doing was wallowing, and it wasn’t the first time. I was focusing so much on what isn’t going right that I wasn’t thinking about the things that are going right.

My best friend, Ms. L., hates it when I get so far down in the dumps that I can’t see any possible chance of something positive happening. She doesn’t like to hear me speak of all of the things that I think I can’t do because of this, that, or the other. She tells me that she doesn’t want to hear it and that she’s there for me but she can’t be around the negativity. To tell you the truth she actually has had the nerve to hang up on me once and I was mad. Those times when she would shut me down when I’m just simply trying to express what I’m feeling at the moment I could not understand how she couldn’t just be there for me and listen. But more and more I realize that she was being a friend, a really good friend.

Not only was she not going to let me tear myself down and make light of my goals or my potential, but she also wasn’t going to let me bring her down into my pit of negativity. I can appreciate that now because I have a person that is in my orbit that constantly tries to find one way or another to bring me down to her level of negativity and tries even harder to keep me feeling that way. I find myself constantly having to cut her off in the midst of her trying to make me commiserate in her own misery and negative feelings just so I can maintain my optimism that I find myself having to work at maintaining on a daily basis.

Sometimes I get stuck feeling a certain way, I get in a funk and too many times I allow myself to stay in that funk for far too long but it is having a friend like Ms. L. that can give me a good shaking (not physically of course) to make me see that wallowing is not going to change anything, but rather allow things to continue on being the same. Changing one’s circumstances can only happen once you stop questioning why me, and why did this or that happen, and actually do something about the situation that you don’t want to be in anymore. It’s good to have a friend that will risk hurting your feelings and upsetting you in order to save you from yourself. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Until next time…Stop wallowing in the things you can’t change and get out there and make the changes that you have the power to make!

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 Theme of It All

September 26, 2011 jcladyluv

I was talking to Ms. L the other night and we were reminiscing about T.V. show theme songs from back in the 90’s and before you knew it we were googling some of those theme songs and singing along with them into the wee hours of the morning. We went from the Mary Tyler Moore show, All in the Family, and Good Times, to Growing Pains, Family Matters, and Friends. There were many more and perhaps even a CD of theme songs may have been involved but I won’t run down the entire list. In between singing these songs together, we even shared common gripes about the fact that it seems as though most of the TV shows now do not have theme songs and how we missed them.

I realized, somewhere between Perfect Strangers and Laverne and Shirley, that the difference between television shows then and now is that the writers seemed to want their shows to be graced with theme songs that were motivating and that uplifted their audiences into believing in themselves and in their dreams. The songs promoted family unity and families supporting one another through good times and bad, and through the things they want to accomplish. Now there are no theme songs, just a flash of music in the beginning of the shows and sometimes a few words to the beat of a random song, but no real theme song. No real promotion of family unity or uplifting of the spirit. It’s almost as if the writers of the shows stopped caring, along with the rest of the world, of the spirit of the people that watch their shows.

The theme shows from before were large reasons that I watched those shows in the first place. The songs would get me motivated and before the show even began I was rooting for those people, for their dreams, and for their family. I got valuable lessons from those promotions of family unity and the empowerment of following your dreams through the music of the theme songs. So when did they stop feeling the need to inspire the audience and to motivate and uplift them? When did the writers of the T.V. shows stop realizing that we still need that push and that empowerment, even if it is in the simple form of a song at the beginning of a show?

Sometimes it is the littlest things that can give someone the inspiration they need to do something different. The writers of these television shows may just see it as an insignificant theme song that cost too much for just that one minute sound bite, but that one minute sound bite might be just what that one person in their intended audience needs to hear. It might be what gets them moving and gets them motivated and lights a fire under them to do something great. That one minute sound bite is more than worth what it cost if it incites someone to be better and be greater than what they were before they sat down to watch their show.

In one of her blog posts, Ms. L said that we sometimes think that with us just being one person, what we do doesn’t count and that it doesn’t make a difference. But one person actually can make a difference and even when you might not think that what you say or do is affecting someone else, there’s a great chance that it is in fact touching someone else’s life in some way. Those writers of television shows may not think anything of the theme songs of the shows in television history and may not consider it worth their time or money to go that extra mile to find or create something that will incite inspiration but I would assure them that those songs mattered and they meant something and if anything it made people more drawn to watch. Just as everything a person does matters, what they don’t do also speaks volumes. Until next time…Do what you do best, even when you think no one will care or is paying attention; chances are that someone is watching!

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 Could Have Been

September 21, 2011 jcladyluv

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

~Jan Glidewell

The other night I was talking to Ms. L and I was feeling a little down because I had a lot of things on my mind. I was thinking of all the curveballs that I have been thrown in life. I was doing a lot of wondering about what could have been.

What if I had done what I was supposed to do all the way through high school and had been able to get a full scholarship to the college of my choice inNew York? What if when I did go to college, not necessarily the one that I wanted to go to, and I had been better prepared for college life and had gotten the grades that I should’ve gotten or at least sought help when I was failing? What if I hadn’t gotten in a really bad relationship and gotten so steered off course from what my vision of my life was? What if I hadn’t met a man who I thought was the love of my life and had a child with him which derailed me going back to school until the late age of 27?

The truth is my life would more than likely be at a very different place, maybe even where I envisioned it being. Had I done all the things that I should’ve done in the correct time frame that it should have been done in I may very well already be into my writing career and perhaps even a lot closer to the top of that media mogul ladder that I am now struggling to climb. But in talking to Ms. L. the other night she helped me to see that everything does in fact happen for a reason and that just because the course of my journey has had to change, the vision has always remained the same and that’s what matters the most.

If I had never been directed to Morgan State University (which was not the school I had always wanted to attend) then I would’ve never met Ms. L. and I can not imagine going through this life without a friend as good as her and as supportive and motivating as her. If I hadn’t met the man who I thought was the love of my life, then I would not have my amazing daughter and I can not even begin to say how thankful I am for her and I wouldn’t trade her for all the money and success in the world.

So many of the things that I have been through are responsible for shaping the person I am today. But in all of that my vision of what I wanted in terms of my career goals and what I feel God put me on this earth to do have never changed. I have never questioned what I am meant to do. Now I may not have answered all of the previous doors that opportunity was knocking at, and looking back perhaps those doors were not meant for me to answer, but I certainly believe that there are still more opportunities out there that I may just have to build my own door to.

What could have been in anyone’s life is not always how things should’ve been and I firmly believe that God knows your path before you even develop a path in your own mind. So who am I to question what could have been when God already has a plan for what will be and the least that I can do, after all he has seen me through and all the talents and abilities that he has blessed me with, is follow the path that he has mapped out for me, not the one that I had mapped out for myself. Until next time…Don’t get sidetracked by the curveballs, just change your plan of how to attack them the next time you’re up to bat!

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

Are You Waiting for the Muse To Strike?

August 15, 2011 jcladyluv

“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.”

~Gerald Brenan~

There are a lot of notions and fantasies about being a writer. The idea of waiting for the muse to suddenly walk into your atmosphere and only writing when inspired is a nice way to look at the life of a writer and a very nice fantasy. It’s the way I looked at writing once upon a time, largely due to the fact that at one point in my life it seemed as if the muse never left me and I was always inspired in one way or another. I never had a problem with only writing when inspiration struck because with me it always seemed to strike. It was when the muse left and the inspiration was no longer an everyday occurrence that I started to wonder, “If the inspiration isn’t there and the muse is gone and I am not writing at a steady flow, can I still consider myself a writer?”

There are still those writers’ who are always inspired and the muse seems to always be there for them and that is a wonderful thing. But that alone is not the only thing makes a person a writer. A person can still be a writer even if it means them having to appoint a designated time to write and put together a schedule of the projects that they need to work on. Scheduling a time to write does not remove the artistic creativity in writing like so many people seem to think. I mean if you think about it, that makes more sense doesn’t it? A person who makes a living as a freelance writer can not simply wait to be inspired. They have to make a plan of action and follow through with it or they don’t make a living.

When I think of all of the time I have wasted waiting for some miraculous moment of inspiration to just jump up and hit me, I try not to think about the amount of novels I could’ve finished, or all of the magazines that I could’ve queried by now, or all of the many ideas I could have made come into fruition. What makes a writer is someone who puts tenacity and determination behind their drive to write and sitting in that chair behind that desk in front of that computer even though the words might not come that day.

Well if you are out there, sitting around and waiting for your muse and inspiration to suddenly strike like lightening, I am going to tell you that while you are waiting your ideas are going to waste. Your characters are going to stop speaking to you, and the stories that they are trying to tell you are disappearing and losing ground. While you are waiting, the ideas for those articles that you want to pitch to those prestigious magazines are being written by someone else who knew better then to wait. The screenplays that you are dreaming about writing are already being written by some other writer and you will no doubt be seeing them on the big screen wishing you had woken up out of your sleep and put those ideas down on paper.

It’s always nice when you can get inspired by something or someone and when you can find that perfect moment of uninterrupted inspiration. But how many novels could you have written while you were waiting for that moment? How many magazines could you have seen your articles placed in waiting for that one thing that inspires you to sit down and write? Shouldn’t seeing your name in print be inspiration enough? It is for me. Until next time….make every moment count, even the uninspired ones!

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

In the Land of Writer’s Block

August 10, 2011 jcladyluv

For a long time I thought that writer’s block was simply a person being unable to write anything at all and unable to come up with ideas for things to write about. While that is an aspect of the term writer’s block. I didn’t think of the alternative which was that a person would be able to write, just not producing anything worth publishing.

For a few months now I have been able to come up with ideas, research projects, and even create details for my writing projects for when I get back to actually writing. The problem was that I wasn’t feeling motivated to actually write. It was simply a bad case of letting life’s road blocks get in my way and affect my inspiration.

Even as I am writing this and trying to get back into the swing of things I still feel somewhat blocked. I mean I am beginning to feel more motivated and inspired to write and I am actually able to produce some wonderful work worth sharing when I get ready but I still feel that in many ways I am not back to my old self, full of inspiration and letting the muse take me on it’s many journey’s. I still feel somewhat blocked.

I am not sure which one is worse, being blocked in a way of not being able to create anything whatsoever, or being blocked in the sense of I can produce work but have it not be worth showcasing or up to your own expected standard of work. I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that one once I figure it out. Well I’m off to trying to be more productive today. Until next time, be blessed!!!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://spokenlikeaqueen.wordpress.com/

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

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

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

Write 2 Be Magazine…Coming in January!!!

August 3, 2011 jcladyluv

Okay I was going to try and come up with some profound and thought provoking blog post today but I am actually not feeling so blocked today and have been working on putting together the contents of my new project. I am creating a new online magazine called Write 2 Be. This magazine will be completely digital and available for free online only. There will be print versions quarterly for subscribers who choose to receive them. It will be designed to give writers and artists a broad platform to showcase their work and share their experiences in dealing with the ins and outs of both the creative and business side of writing and the publishing industry.

I am currently looking for writers who would like to showcase their work, be it fiction or informative articles, artists who would like to display their artwork, spoken word artists who would like to share video clips of their performances, and author’s who would like to be interviewed and who would like their books to be featured in the magazine. It is set to debut in January of 2012 and I am excited about what I feel it will bring and the knowledge that will be shared. Anyone who would like more details or to share in this new venture please send an e-mail to write2bemagazine@yahoo.com.

I am going to go ahead and get back to working on my new project before my motivation dies down and will provide further details at a later date. I will be writing again soon. Be blessed!

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

Planting the Seeds of Motivation

August 1, 2011 jcladyluv

“A guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.’ What if they don’t show up? The best motivation is self-motivation.”

~Jim Rohn, US motivational speaker

I haven’t written anything here in a while and it was a break from writing that I hadn’t expected to take. Somehow I have been letting stress and worry, and a little bit of fear, get in the way of my love of writing and my motivation to progress within my writing career and continue moving steadily forward. I stalled. I sat at the computer and stared at blank pages with the pages taunting me with their white empty space. I tried for a while and I just couldn’t get inspired and the words just wouldn’t come.

Now the whole time I was unable to write was not completely wasted because I did do research on some projects that I have on my list to start working on but I still felt quite unproductive. Finally I realized that my stress and fear was increasing and that I couldn’t continue to toss my writing aside in hopes that the stress and fear would go away sooner rather than later. I started to actually research things like what to do for lack of motivation and how to get motivated again.

Guess what? There is not magical cure for writer’s block due to depression and that there is no one right answer of how to move past it. One piece of the same advice from many different successful and accomplished writers that stuck with me was that even when you don’t feel like writing, make a schedule and write anyway. So I wrote out a list for all of the projects that I want to work on and get done and then I mapped out the week and began to decide what projects to work on and on what days to work on them.

Now I don’t know if this is going to work and how well of a job I am going to do at sticking to the schedule that I set out to do but I do know that this blog post that I am writing at this very moment was the first thing of my schedule to do today and as you see I have completed that task. All I can do is take this one day at a time and hope that I do what I set out to do.

I guess I just always thought that it would be like it was when I was a little younger, where the words just flowed out of me and I had to actually stop myself from writing because otherwise I would’ve never slept. Inspiration and the motivation to write was never a problem. I hadn’t planned on life getting in the way and throwing me off my path.

Now I am learning that sometimes inspiration and motivation aren’t just going to show up and tap me on the shoulder and the words can’t always flow that easily. No matter what I still have to write because honestly I can’t see myself being happy doing anything else. I am planting my own seeds of motivation and now I am going to work on steadily moving forward because I can’t afford to take any more steps back.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”