Tag: Opportunity

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A Chance Meeting With a Message for Me About Rejection

April 13, 2012 jcladyluv

“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.”

~Bo Bennett

I met someone at the Starbucks today as I sat down to the blank page of my computer screen wondering what I was going to write this post about today. She is a fellow author and I saw her come in with her box of books of her debut novel, Murder by Ice. She walked right up to the cashier at the counter and after ordering her coffee asked if she could sell her books here. I thought to myself ‘she’s not even afraid that they’ll say no, why aren’t I like that.’ She sat at the table where I was sitting as she waited for the cashier to talk to the manager and get a response back to her and we began talking.

I asked her how she gets up the nerve to do that. I promptly began to explain how hard it was for me to just get out and talk to people to get them to buy my book as I handed her the postcard for my novel, The Diary: Succession of Lies. I know funny right. I’m talking about how hard it is for me to promote myself and my book as I am whipping out the postcard for my book (I didn’t even realize what I was doing while I was doing it). She asked where my book was but it just so happened that I left the box of books at home and she immediately got on me. I explained that sometimes I just don’t feel like anyone’s going to buy it so I just don’t bring it with me.

We talked for over an hour about many different things and she asked me why I found it so easy to show my card about my book to her but can’t go out and do the same with other people. I told her that it was easy to do that with people who I knew were writers as well. Writers know the painstaking efforts we each go through, not just to write the book but to get it edited and published and selling. I told her that with other writers I feel less of a chance of getting rejected.

She said to me in essence that rejection comes with the territory of being a writer (which I am all too familiar with) but also that just because someone doesn’t buy my book right then and there that it is not necessarily rejection. Sometimes just their knowing about your book and the story it tells may make them think about it and go buy it later. However, if I never tell anyone then no one ever goes back to buy it later.

Rejection is just so scary and it, at times, makes you feel like you are not good enough. It can make you doubt yourself. I mean obviously I know that everyone is not going to always like what I write or publish it but it still stings a little (a lot actually). Well as it turns out this lady that I ran into, I already knew her. There we were talking like strangers and then realizing that I used to hang out with her daughter and that I already knew her. It was wonderful to run into her because I hadn’t seen her in so long (since I was still a teenager).

We both realized that there was a reason for both of us coming to this particular Starbucks on this particular day because I started not to go there today but in many ways something was drawing me there. Now I know that it was to run into this wonderfully, courageous, woman, who at the age of 50 (hope she wouldn’t mind me saying her age) has the nerve and fearlessness of getting out there and promoting herself and her book (her baby as she called it) and for me to be inspired by her actions.

In just the short time that I talked to her today she reminded me that rejection is nothing to be afraid of and that that fear could even make me better and work harder to accomplish what I want (and need) to get done. She said to me that we writers are pioneers of inspiration and reminded me that our stories and experiences are meant to be shared with others.

Even if everyone doesn’t get something out of your shared experiences, there’s always that one person that will. That one person will be inspired, or motivated, and take your words as lessons and advice for the steps that they take moving forward. You will be their chance meeting with a message that they never knew they were going to receive.

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

Cutting the Ties of Negativity That Keep Me Bound

April 12, 2012 jcladyluv

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

~Lucille Ball

It is important when being a writer, in business for yourself, that you have adequate support around you. People reassuring you that you will be successful and that actually believe the encouragement that they are giving you. People that you can bounce ideas off of and they get how your mind works and don’t automatically assume that you are crazy. People that don’t tear you down every chance that they get.

I think that I have built up a good circle of people who believe in my vision and what my purpose is. It may be a very small circle but it is there. The problem that I continue to come up against is the people, or person in particular, who continues to tear me down with every open shot they get.

Now I know that I am supposed to cut any negative form of energy that enters into my circle and threatens my belief in myself but family is a little harder to get rid of. Every time I get to a place where I feel confident in what I am doing and I begin to stop doubting myself (at least not on an everyday basis) this person says such negative, nasty, unsupportive things. Sometimes they just say things that are downright hateful.

I asked someone once how you are supposed to extract that negative energy from your life and your circle when they are family and you have to deal with them on a regular basis. This person told me that just because that person is your family doesn’t mean that they necessarily deserve to be treated the way people normally would treat their family. He said that if they are not living up to the title and are not giving me that emotional support that family is supposed to give one another then they are family in title only but not in their actions.

I never thought of it that way and even though I try to keep this in mind, every time I have to deal with this person (which is often because my daughter is very close to them) the negativity is just there and sometimes it seeps in my subconscious whether I want it to or not. Last night the negativity seeped in for a little while but for a writer there is typically a battle to keep out the voices of doubt, whether it is your voice or the voice of others.

I didn’t necessarily win the time and productivity battle today but every day won’t be perfect and you have to just take the good with the bad. Tomorrow will be a better day, one where I will avoid all said persons projecting negativity my way.

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

A Lesson in Life that Skating Reminded Me Of

April 9, 2012 jcladyluv

Today I took my daughter skating. I thought it was a good way to end her spring break and I thought it would be good fun for her. I hadn’t intended on skating as well, I just wanted to sit on the sidelines and watch her hold onto the wall as she made her way around. Just as she did the last time I took her skating, which was two years ago for her birthday, she asked me to skate with her. I told her no because truth be told my knee was really bothering me. I sent her out into the rink and watched her take about five minutes (maybe more) to make her way around the first time.

After her first trip around she came to me and said she wanted to go home, that it was harder then she remembered. I reminded her that we don’t quit on things just because they seem hard at first and that the only way to get good at anything was to keep going back out there and trying. I assured her that she would get better at it just like she did the first time we went skating and the time she went skating with her class at school. It inspired me to go get a pair of rental skates myself (I hate putting my feet where others have been) and make my attempt to skate with her, as she requested.

Now I used to be a really good skater back in my teenage years but other than the attempt I made two years ago I haven’t really skated and with all of the aches and pains settling in within my body I get nervous at the thought of skating (or at least the part where I fall). I was truly terrified to get out there on the floor of that skating rink but I did it and pretty soon I was even able to let go of the wall, at least some of the time.

I believe that seeing me get out there and not giving up even inspired my daughter to let go of the wall a few times herself. I even noticed her gathering speed a couple of times, but she didn’t want to quit anymore. In fact when it came time to leave she didn’t want to go. I made a promise to her that we would go skating more often now. I had actually started to have fun myself and I forgot just how much fun skating was.

The thing about skating that I can relate to real life experiences sometimes is that it has a lot to do with being resilient. With skating, especially if you haven’t done it in a long time, there is always a good chance that you will fall (in fact unless you are a pro it’s kind of expected), but you don’t have a choice but to get back up again. You can’t just sit there and give up because you have to, at the very least, get back up if you want to get out the skating rink.

Much like skating, in life when something or someone knocks you down, maybe even literally knocking the wind out of you, you have to get back up. More importantly, you have to realize that you are going to fall many time but you have to keep getting back up again. It’s amazing that I got all of that out of skating but sometimes it’s the little things that you underestimate that have some of the biggest lessons for you to learn from. I can’t wait to get good at skating again and to help my daughter get to that point where she can let go of the wall and go it alone. Won’t that be something?

By the way I did, in fact, fall, but I got back up and skated around a few more times. It was so much fun!

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

Banishing the Age Old Excuse

April 6, 2012 jcladyluv

“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.”

~Dale E. Turner

This morning as I was watching the news they started talking about baseball (which is my least favorite sport, next to golf) and I started to go into my usual mode whenever I heard baseball mentioned, ignore mode. But this time something caught my attention, enough to actually make me sit and listen.

They were discussing the oldest major league pitcher to have ever played baseball. Jamie Moyer is a 49 year old pitcher who is now playing with the Colorado Rockies after suffering an elbow injury in 2010 that caused him to lose an entire season of playtime. The injury required him to have reconstructive surgery (Tommy John Surgery) with an estimated recovery time of at least a year.

The word throughout the sports world was that his career was most likely over because this was not his first injury. However, Jamie Moyer had other things in mind then letting go of his career, although his career has already surpassed many of the people he came into the league with and he was now playing with men of the next generation of baseball.

All he wanted was the chance to prove to all of the people who said he was too old or that he didn’t throw hard enough anymore that he could in fact do this once again. They gave him his chance and he proved them wrong and now he could potentially be making history as the oldest major league baseball pitcher to ever win a game.

It got me to thinking about all of the times that I doubted continuing my efforts as a writer because I was starting to feel as though maybe I was getting too old to be starting out in this career. I mean in my mind I should’ve already done so many great things within my career by now and I have, instead, been stuck going around in circles. Watching that story on the news this morning taught me something. The age factor is only in my mind, not anyone else’s.

Jamie Moyer commented that “as long as you have an opportunity you can succeed, but you have to be willing to put the time and the effort into it.” Essentially as long as the opportunities keep presenting themselves to me, I don’t have a reason (or rather an excuse) to not go after them.

People often tell me that I waste a lot of time watching TV and watching the news, but I never listen to that because I know what I get out of it. I get inspiration and I get motivated. I hear other people’s stories and experiences and I receive the wisdom and lessons that they try to impart to those that are watching and listening.

Today, just in those five minutes that I watched that news piece I saw someone who wouldn’t let people tell him he was too old to continue on with his dream. I saw someone who didn’t use his age as an excuse to just give up. I heard something that motivated me to give up my last excuse for not going after every single opportunity that comes my way, especially the ones that are a pathway to my dreams.

I will only be too old when I can’t write anymore and my fingers can’t translate the words from my mind onto paper (or computer screen). As long as I have ideas in my head and the ability to convey them, I will never be too old. Hell even in my senior years (I mean really old-80’s old), I can still dictate my thoughts into a tape recorder and (if the arthritis has really set in) have someone else type up my work. Age really is just a number, not a dream killer!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

Is It Really Worth Taking the Leap?

March 21, 2012 jcladyluv

“Man cannot discover new oceans until he has courage to lose sight of the shore.”
~Unknown

So last week I sent off for some more of my books. I couldn’t get that many because, well, I just don’t have the cash flow right now to get a whole case load, but I got a few that I could sell to make some more ‘seed’ money. However, there are at least three books that I had planned on setting aside to send to three very important people (to me), Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and Zane.

Now I know what some people would think as they are reading this, ‘why send it to people who might never actually read it?’ It’s the same thing I was thinking at first but someone advised me that I never know whether they would read it or not, or whether someone on their staff would read it and like it enough to do things with it that I can’t do with it, not yet anyway. So I was anxiously waiting for my books and today they came (earlier then expected) and now I sit here rethinking whether I should send it to those three important people or not.

What if my book just sits in some pile of what they deem to be junk mail or ordinary fan mail and never gets looked at? What if they look at it and just toss it away in the trash somewhere? I mean who am I to them that they would find any interest in my book? What would they find so special about my book that they would pay attention to it? But then I am reminded of what I posted yesterday and what I am trying to put into a more consistent practice.

I have to step out on faith and believe in myself to know that not only am I good enough but my book is too, so why wouldn’t they want to pay attention to it. I said that this stepping out on faith thing was going to take me some time to actually do without questioning it. But then there are the questions that are going to pop into my head if I don’t send them off. What if they were to get my book, and read it, and love it? What if I would be passing up an opportunity that God is placing on my path? I guess I won’t find out exactly what would happen with my giant leap of faith if I never take that leap.

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 Providence Be Your Guide

January 23, 2012 jcladyluv

I was watching Oprah’s Master Class last night and this particular episode was about Morgan Freeman and his long journey to success. He spoke a lot of letting Providence be your guide. I know that this is going to sound funny but I had never really heard of that saying and I didn’t quite understand what it meant. I mean I realized what meaning it had by the context he was using it in throughout the telling of his life lessons but I still (being the constant researcher that I am) had to go to Google and read more about this Providence. In short, it refers to God’s extraordinary intervention in the life of people.

When Morgan Freeman continually mentioned Providence intervening at the right moments in his life he spoke of the countless times that he might have been leaning towards making wrong, or worse, desperate decisions to maintain a somewhat decent living while in search for his dream that frankly took way longer to come to fruition than he would’ve liked. He spoke about his attempt in joining the Air Force in which case he quickly realized he wasn’t cut out for that. Providence had intervened.

He talked about his attempts at being a ‘clerk typists’ and working for this company as a temp. When he tried to get the job full time the hiring manager told him that that was not what he was supposed to be doing, and that he was supposed to be an Actor. Providence had intervened again. He spoke of his collecting unemployment and having to search for a typical, clerk typist job which kept him from looking for acting jobs. He said that he had gotten frustrated enough to go to the supervisor of the employment agency and told her that by them making him look for typical work that he just wasn’t meant for, they were keeping him from being who he truly was, an actor. She approved his benefits anyway and gave him six months to get an acting job. Providence intervened again. There were countless other people in his life that ‘intervened’ with him trying to lead a mediocre existence and steered him even further towards what he was born to do.

In the beginning of the program he made a statement about things happening as they should and that you are going to have those certain times in your life where you think that you should have been doing something else, something more, but that’s not necessarily so. He said that you probably should be doing whatever it is you’re doing, just to do your best at it. I thought about that, and the fact that I always feel like I should be in a much different place, a much better place. But in listening to the life lessons of Morgan Freeman, a man who didn’t really come into his career until he was around the age of fifty (although I really hope it doesn’t take me that long), I realized that he’s right.

I mean I would like to not have gone through a lot of the things I’ve gone through in life. I’ve had opportunities pass by me that just seemed like they should have been mine but somehow didn’t pan out. Perhaps that was Providence also intervening in my life. Without all of the things that I have gone through, those things I sit and wonder ‘why me’ about, would I be the person I am right now. Would I be as strong, as determined, as persistent? Would I be this much of a fighter? I don’t know that I would be if I hadn’t had all of these tests and obstacles along my journey.

Perhaps Providence has protected me from something I might not have been ready for. Maybe the opportunities that passed me by weren’t really mine to begin with. Maybe I should just do the best at what I’m doing now and be the best writer that I can be right now, in this moment, and let Providence guide me. Maybe we all should let that spiritual force be the guide that steers us in the direction that we should be going, not necessarily in the direction we think we should be going. Until tomorrow…Take stock in what you are doing now, it most likely is right where you should be.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

From the Outside Looking In

January 13, 2012 jcladyluv

It is funny how the people closest to you can see things in you and possibilities for you that you never even had in mind for yourself. We plan things for our life and never count on the unexpected opportunities that pop up along the way. You know those things that you never thought you would be good at but that somehow fit right into you niche that you are carving out for yourself.

Ms. L has foreseen something for me that somehow fits right into my other plans for my Media Company and that might actually help elevate things to the next level but it is something that I never even thought about doing before. I must admit (she’s going to say I told you so later) that her foresight could be quite lucrative if it is as successful as she thinks it could be. But I am just afraid that because it’s something I could never see myself doing, that other people will look at me with that judgmental look and the lingering questions in their mind of ‘how can she possibly be successful at this’. Why not, it’s the same question I have for myself.

But I promised her that I would give it some thought (and I don’t want to say what it is until I’m sure that I would actually do it) and that I would stop putting that wall up for myself and telling myself that I can’t do something before I even try. Sometimes Ms. L sees things in the bigger picture that I never even saw and it’s amazing what the opinion from someone on the outside looking in can mean to your projected future. I think I like Ms. L’s view of my projected future. Until tomorrow…What do you project for your future?

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 is There to Wait For?

January 10, 2012January 10, 2012 jcladyluv

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait. The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.”

~Dr. Robert Anthony

When someone in the gym this morning asked why I didn’t wait for them to go start my running I simply said I’m not waiting for anyone this year. It got me to thinking about just how much time I have spent (or rather wasted) waiting around for something or someone. It seems like I was always the one that would wait for people to come along, or come around and who in turn wanted people to wait around for me.

I guess I must have had some sort of revelation when this year kicked into gear because my attitude became one of not wanting to wait around for anyone anymore, or for anything to just happen. Not even waiting around for the other shoe to drop as I typically do as well. How many minutes or hours do people spend just waiting? I am tired of waiting for other people, or even having people waiting for me to do something that they already know they need to do.

Now I am not speaking of every single aspect of your life but when it comes to doing something that you know has to get done, don’t sit around waiting, not even for that person that said they were going to be right there alongside you. I wish I could get back all of the time that I’ve wasted waiting around for something to happen, waiting for someone to get their act together, waiting for someone to give me great opportunities to exercise the talent that I possess, even waiting for inspiration to just strike (as I posted about yesterday).

The fact of the matter is that I can’t just sit and wait because there isn’t anymore time for that. Too much time has already gone by. Now it’s time to get my butt into high gear and get busy making what I want happen and not waiting around letting opportunities just fall through the cracks. Until tomorrow…Can you count how much time you’ve wasted just waiting around?

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

Tired of the Uneventful Weekends

January 7, 2012 jcladyluv

Today has been uneventful and I suppose that could be a good thing except for people (like me) who find themselves saying that way too often. The weekends (at least) are supposed to be eventful and full of choices and endless opportunities of things to do and people to socialize with, and hobbies to get lost in. However, because I seem to be in a current state of having to rob Peter to pay Paul and having Peter begging for his money back I find that my options of weekend fun, both for me and my daughter, are extremely limited right now. She wants to go skating and bowling and do all of these fun things that cost more money than I have at the moment (that is, if I actually want to keep the lights on) and I hate having to tell her that we just don’t have the money right now. It is my hope that in the very (very) near future I will have many eventful weekends with so much fun and excitement packed into it and that they will give me many experiences to share with you all. In fact, because I know that 2012 holds bigger and better things for me, it is only a matter of time before my weekends (and some days thrown in during the week would be nice) will be nothing but adventurous and life changing. Well I am go catch up on some reading (again, uneventful) because I am really behind. Until tomorrow…Fill your life with adventurous moments because you only live once!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”