Tag: planning

I Want to Be in the Room Where Things Happen

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I am not a particularly envious person. I celebrate all successes, and I genuinely believe that we all deserve to live our best lives. I believe that if you work hard and use your drive and ambition to propel you forward, then you will get to where it is you’re trying to go. But I am not naïve to the fact that there are some who get where they’re going out of sheer luck or because they just know the right people. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t wish I was the person who had that kind of luck or knew the right people because my hard work does not seem to be paying off.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 6 years old and have been actively working at it since I was 10 years old. I started doing freelance work more than a decade ago and I have never once given up on the dream of being a full-time writer someday. Even had the audacity to think that at some point I would be able to get a job in someone’s writing room because writing for television has also been one of my goals. Now I’ll be honest and say that there are quite a few opportunities that I never even tried to shoot for because I had too many negative voices of people around me (on top of my own self-doubts) telling me that it could never happen, and I believed them.

That said, I’ve seen people write one book and find themselves on the Bestseller’s list. I’ve seen people write one script for a show and suddenly they’re the industry’s hottest new script writer. I don’t begrudge them their success at all, but I do wonder, if I’m working my ass off and I have the talent to back it up (because I have never once questioned my writing ability) then where is my success story at.

I understand putting in the work, but I have been working towards this dream for nearly my entire life, and I just feel like I should be so much further by now. I should be in the room where things are happening, and I can’t figure out why I’m not. I’ve got multiple degrees, I’ve studied my craft, I’ve written several manuscripts and poems, and stories, and articles, and if being a kind- and good-hearted person matters at all, I’d like to think I’m that too.

So why is it that some things come so much easier for some as opposed to others? I have my speculations as to what the answer to that are but truthfully, no one ever really knows why one person gets rewarded for all of their efforts and another person doesn’t. I do wonder at times if all of the ambition and drive I put into this calling that I have, this gift, what I truly feel is my purpose, is worth all of the rejection and heartache and sacrifice and loss.

I guess the simple answer is yes. I mean would I have been at this for more than three decades of my life (more if you actually count when I started working on the craft of writing itself) if I didn’t think that it would all be worth it in the end? I couldn’t have given so much of myself and dived as deep into this dream of being a crafter of words if I didn’t believe that it was worth giving it absolutely everything that I’ve got. I’m a writer. I was born to be a writer. If there was anything that I was put here on this earth to do, aside from being a mother to my amazing wonderfully gifted daughter with creative talents of her own, it was to impact people with my words.

So, do I feel the urge to give up sometimes? Yes! When I’m sitting in the waiting room of life, patiently waiting for my turn to be allowed in the room where things happen for people. The room where people get to see their dreams become a reality. The room where creatives like me get met with people who believe in their talent and ability enough to propel them forward on the ladder of success.  When I keep having to peep inside the window, watching others get their turn and I wonder where is mine. Those are the moments I feel defeated. But the thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I refuse to be defeated. I refuse to give up. I want to be in the room where things happen and one day I will be, even if I’m the last person left standing in the waiting room.

 

Until Next Time… #BePatient #BeDiligent #BePersistent

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Jimmetta Carpenter

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I Am More Than the Battles I Didn’t Win

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It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve written here and updated you. I have been busy, or at least I’ve been trying to be as productive as I possibly can. I published a book at the end of July called ‘The Weight of HER’ (you can check it out on this link) and that was really exciting and I’m so happy that it’s out into the world for everyone to share in this story that has lived in my head for a very long time now. Some would say that I should still be reveling in celebratory bliss and taking in the accomplishment that is publishing a book (because it is definitely not for the faint of heart). I’m pretty sure if it was one of my friends, or hell, anyone else for that matter, I would say the same thing to them. Yet all I can think about is the books that I had planned to publish this year that I’m not going to be able to publish.

Now there’s still one more coming this year (come hell or high water) but in my plan I had envisioned myself publishing at the very least 4 this year. 2 novels, 1 non-fiction essay style book for writers, and a collection of poetry and essays (sort-of memoir-sh). I know that I should be thankful I was able to publish one book and will likely be able to get another one out there…and don’t get me wrong, I am! It’s just setbacks always make me feel like a failure.

Instinctively, I know that we can’t always plan for everything and honestly life would be pretty boring if there were no spontaneity. However, I am a planner to my core. I can envision a dream and believe that it’s possible all day long but if I don’t create a plan to make that vision happen and have a visual representation for the steps I need to take to see that plan through then I get stuck. Then to have that plan be thrown off track by life’s inevitable obstacles, oftentimes leaves me paralyzed. By the time I get unstuck and accomplish one of the things on my list (because y’all know I love my lists) the feeling of being a failure has already set in and it’s a hard feeling to shake.

I have a really wonderful friend who said that I should start making lists (because she knows how I am about my lists lol) of all of the accomplishments that I get done. The things that I manage to achieve despite the curve balls that life has continued to keep throwing me, or the physical limitations that I have developed over the last several years, or the pain that I now feel on an almost daily basis. She even started rattling off some of those things that, while I didn’t forget them, I just didn’t seem to count them. In essence she told me to stop selling myself short and she’s right. I underestimate myself a lot and I think it’s one of those things that if you’ve done it for so long, it is a behavior that is hard to unlearn. I am going to really try my hardest to remember ALL of who I am, and not just the things that I am not.

There are battles that we all face every day. One’s that people know all about and help pull us through. And the one’s that no one else ever sees and that we carry on our own. No matter what the obstacles are, whether you push through it, slide under it, go around it, or just step over it, the point is that you make it to the other side. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to make it there. It’s the fact that you will have made it. That you accomplished the things you set out to do. Maybe not in the time that you wanted to, but you will eventually be able to add it to your growing list of things you achieved in life. Just remember in the journey to get to the reward that is our dreams, we are more than the battles that we have had to face to get there.

Until next time… #BeFearless #BePersistent #BeVictorious

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Accept the Unexpected

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“Life becomes more peaceful when you switch from expect to accept” ~ Thomas Gomes

I saw this quote this morning as I scrolled through Facebook, and it came on the heels of a rough start to my Monday. Not a seriously terrible rough start by normal standards of what a rough start would be. Just a rough start for my anxiety riddled, OCD brain who needs to have things go a certain way nearly every day for me to be able to function properly. I am a routine person, as I think I have discussed here before, and I am the type of person that if even one part of my day-to-day routine is altered, I freak out and I’m completely thrown off. I actually (crazily enough) expect things to go the way that I need them to go each and every day.

You would think that with all of the things that have thrown me off track in my life that I would be used to not having things go the way that I expect them to go but sadly I am not. I still take way too long to adjust myself to whatever changes have been tossed my way and the length of time I take to accept these changes and course corrections only makes me less productive and ultimately makes it so I accomplish less than what I had originally planned to get done.

In a normal situation, what I was thrown off by this morning (I won’t even get into what it was because honestly it would be far too silly to anyone who doesn’t understand my quirks lol) should not have affected me as much as it did. I should not have spent the better part of the first half of the day just struggling to cope with the changes and the fact that what I expected was no longer. I perhaps would have been much more at peace if I had just quickly accepted that this part of my routine was going to have to change now and that was just going to be that. It’s how I should have reacted and when I saw this quote it clicked for me. I’m wasting time I don’t have trying to control something I just can’t control anymore.

I think that’s what it was really all about and honestly what my quirks about having a consistent, unchanging routine ultimately stem from. There are so many things in life that we won’t be able to control. Things that happen to us and things that happen for us that we just have no real say in. So, it’s hard to find those few things you can control (at least for a little while anyway) and that you allow yourself to get used to being able to expect, and have them change on you, on a dime, out of nowhere.

Expectations are a funny thing. We’re not supposed to ever just expect for certain things to work out in any particular way, yet we are taught to have a schedule or routine to make sure that we are staying on track with our goals and aspirations. Aren’t routines and schedules in fact expectations? When you set up your day in a way that works best for you to be productive it is, in fact, based off of expecting for things to go accordingly. Maybe the trick is to learn to accept that unexpected things will happen, even if they throw you off balance for a little bit. Thank you, guys, for letting me vent and comment if you understand what it feels like to be thrown off and struggle to adjust to the things you don’t expect.

Until next time… #BePatient BeMindful #BeResilient

Jimmetta Carpenter

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It is Now Planning Season

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So today is the last day of NaNoWriMo and I know that I’ve been MIA for the last two weeks. I realized that I had to put my total focus on writing my novel for NaNo these last few weeks. I actually put quite a few things on the back burner but it all paid off because I did it! I won NaNoWriMo!

Now while that does not mean that the book is finished because it is most certainly not (I’m not sure a book would ever be completed for me in 50,000 words lol)  but the pressure of finishing those first chunk of words of my novel is over and now I can relax a bit. I say relax but really relaxing is the last thing that’s really going to happen in the month of December.

December is the month of planning for me (and a lot of other writers frankly) in which I start taking a hard look at the year of 2021 and what I want to happen over the course of that year, the goals, the vision board, the reading lists, the books I plan to write and publish, the merchandise I am releasing, the new things for the magazine, my YouTube channel, my newsletter, and other things. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it?

Yeah it’s overwhelming when I lay it all out like that but I am a planner and a person who needs goals to strive to reach and while I may not reach all of them (Lord knows I did not reach my goals in 2020—but who did lol) I will definitely feel better about myself if I know that I am at least giving it a try. So what do all of you do to get prepared for the New Year? Are you feeling a little shy about planning for 2021 given the year that was 2020? Share your planning methods with me if you’d like! Until next time… #BeMotivated #BePrepared #BeFearless

 

Jimmetta Carpenter 

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It’s That Time Again—A Writer’s Favorite Time of Year

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It’s that time of the year again! It’s a writer’s favorite time of year! Well at least it’s the month of Prep for a writer’s favorite time of the year which would be NaNoWriMo!  That’s right, it is Prep-Tober! It’s the month where all the planning either begins or continues in an effort to be as ready as possible to go on day one of National Novel Writing Month.

I am so excited and after the year that 2020 has been, it’s nice to have something to be really excited about. NaNoWriMo is pretty much my Christmas (not to say that I don’t also love Christmas because that is my absolute favorite holiday) and I love everything about, including the pressure that it forces you to put on yourself to finish an entire novel in a month.

When I say pressure I mean good pressure (and yes pressure can be good) because I happen to be one of those weird people who perform even better when under a deadline and nearly impossible time constraints. It kind of makes me push past the limited expectations that I sometimes impose on myself and allow me to see what I can really do because truthfully sometimes I forget. 

I haven’t worked on a brand new novel since last year’s NaNoWriMo and I am beyond excited to get started. Drafting is my absolute favorite part of writing, well second to outlining (I am really detailed with my outlines and they sometimes take longer to write than the actual book) and I’m ready to join all of the live writing streams, and drink an unhealthy amount of coffee (for the purpose of writing of course lol), and get all of these ideas out of my head and finally onto the page.  By the end of November I will have a new book baby and I am so thrilled.

I don’t know how many of you out there will be participating in NaNoWriMo but if you are please let me know and I wish you all the luck. If you want to know what project I’m working on specifically for NaNoWriMo then please feel free to check out my YouTube channel under Author J.C. Carpenter (it’s also linked in the signature below) and if you are on YouTube let me know so I can find you.  With that said I have some planning to go do. Until next time… #BeProductive #BeInspired #BeMotivated

 

Jimmetta Carpenter 

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It’s Time for Another Writing Event

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So this week’s post is going to be a more writerly post, because after all, I am a writer! So Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us and if you don’t yet know what that is, briefly, it is an abbreviated version of the National Novel Writing event that takes place in the month of November. It’s a bit of a warm up if you will, where you get to set your own goals as opposed to having to stick to the goal on the site. I find that these writing events that they have in April, July, and of course November are extremely helpful ways, on the occasions when I get thrown off track for whatever reason, to get myself back on the writing track and to reform the habit of writing on a daily basis. It forces you to dedicate some concentrated time to some area of your writing at least a little part of each day and it’s so good to have that focus.

I have so many projects that I am working on, all in different stages of completion, and a couple that I’m getting ready to start but planning and preparation are key. I am a planner by nature but it doesn’t always seem that way because while I have in the past attempted to delve into the planner world and have a planner for every single project that I am working on (which could get incredibly expensive), I tend to revert back to keeping things spread out on scraps of paper and several blank books spread out all over which I’ll admit doesn’t seem organized but I know where everything is when I need to get to it.

That said, I have bought a few more planners to try and hone my organizational skills a bit better because I hope that it will inevitably make me even more focused and since we’re in the midst of a pandemic what better time to enhance my organization skills and to increase my productivity all the more. I am finding that keeping things in specific planners for different projects and different areas of my business is actually turning out to be a much better system and I have managed not to revert back to the scraps of paper and random unfocused notebooks so I guess it is working.

So for Camp NaNoWriMo, which starts July 1st (yep, that’s Wednesday) I have a brand new novel that I am working on and more specifically I am outlining for Camp. I have a YouTube channel that I will be chronicling the process of that journey on, among other things I discuss on my channel. I also, if you want a little broader description on what Camp NaNoWriMo is, have a video specifically on my Camp goals. So I’m wondering if any of you out there have a particular planning system or an organizational practice that helps you stay focused and on track? If any of you are writers, do you plan to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo or the big event in November? Let me know and until next time… #BeCreative #BeProductive #BeFocused

 

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Celebrating the Success of Others

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So I wanted to talk about the nature of celebrating other people’s success. This comes to mind because a couple of weekends ago Tyler Perry had a history making moment with the grand opening of his very own studio company. Now for those of you who may have been living under a rock the last few weeks (lol) and do not understand why this was historic for him and for people of color in general, it’s because he didn’t just open a new studio with some investors and some private backing from someone here or there, he owns that entire 330 acre lot, 100% outright, with HIS OWN money and not owing anyone else any favors or money at all for this achievement. It was monumental to the African American community to have him accomplish this in a time where it seemed damn near impossible.

Now I was ecstatic for Mr. Perry and emotional, so much so that you would’ve thought I knew that man (sadly, I don’t, at least not yet anyway) and I was thrilled to see the outpouring of love and celebration for the hard work he has put in and what he has accomplished. Now while I know that everyone is not a Tyler Perry fan, I didn’t expect all of the hatred towards him either. You don’t have to like his body of work (although I absolutely love every single thing he’s ever done) in order to be able to appreciate his business savvy and work ethic and the fact that he didn’t just wait for a seat at the table, he literally went out and built his own.

It made me think about how much further we could get in this life if we stop begrudging everyone the success that they’ve achieved and celebrate them and appreciate the path that they are laying for the people that will come behind them. Everyone that achieves anything, it is due to someone that went ahead of them and broke down a few barriers first, and busted down some doors so that it wouldn’t be so hard for the next person.  When I was younger I used to have the why them and not me thoughts but I realized a long time ago that what may be one person’s time is not necessarily meant to be my time, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that I give up and it certainly doesn’t mean that I wish for someone else to fail.

God’s plan for someone else is never going to be the same plan that he has for you because their purpose is different from yours. It doesn’t mean that we can’t be happy for someone else having their dreams come true and appreciate the work that went into making those dreams come to fruition. We have to be each other’s cheering section and root each other on because honestly a win for one person is essentially a win for all of us because the world can only become a better, more prosperous (and I don’t mean only monetarily) place when we all love one another and come together to make each other better. So the next time you start wishing that someone else’s success was yours, try readjusting your way of seeing things. Remember that the success that is theirs is going to be on a different level than the success that is meant for you. Until next time… #BeGrateful #BeDiligent

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

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To Plan or Not to Plan?

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So you’ve got your story idea together right? You’ve started building your characters and molding and shaping their personalities? Now it’s time to decide whether you are a pantser or a planner when it comes to writing your novel. What’s a pantser, you ask? Well that’s when you are fortunate enough to be able to just sit down at the blank screen of your laptop and begin writing with no plot or course of action laid out before you. If you are one of those writers let me please just give you a virtual round of applause because I have tried writing that way before and the amount of time I had to use up to go back and forth to see if I had this detail or that detail just right, or to check the timeline and make sure that I hadn’t made some huge error and it just did not work for me.

I, like a lot of writers, am a planner and I try as much as I can to plan out every detail that I can. In terms of writing my novel I have realized that I have to have an outline. I typically do a short brief outline with just some of the major points of the story and where the plot twists are and the dramatic parts and the whodunit aspects of the story. After I get a general outline together then I take my character sketches and I begin the more detailed, chapter by chapter, plot twist by plot twist, part of outlining.

Now I think there’s a misconception that when people outline they follow the outline to the tee and I have heard a lot of people say that’s what they don’t like about outlining but the outline is just a general road map for you to follow but the story almost never follows the outline down to the letter. In fact I almost never stick directly to the outline but having that outline does help me stay more on track then I would if I were just writing without a blueprint.

Where the outlining process can get a little broad and diverse is in the method in which you choose to outline. I for one like just getting a legal notepad and writing my outline by hand (this and the character sketches are the only things I write by hand). The other methods of outlining that people typically use are creating a storyboard with a bulletin board or you can storyboard in a digital format now with Pintrest or whatever digital format works for you to create a visual idea of your story. Some people choose to do a graphing (or mind mapping) method. There are also programs that will help you outline in a particular digital format such as Scrivener.

Now you don’t have to outline in order to compose a good story for NaNoWriMo. Outlining doesn’t necessarily make your story any worse or better. Like I said in my last post, it’s just a matter of finding and doing what works well for you. I hope that some of this information helps you and the next post I will be giving you a few YouTue channels that I think you should check out that will help you in your Preptober adventures. Until next time… #HappyOutlining

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

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Plant Seeds, Water Dreams, and Persist Until Success Blooms

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planting the Seeds of Dreams 2I’ve been thinking a lot about the time limits we impose upon ourselves when it comes to getting the things we want done. For a planner like me who had her life plans mapped out from the time I was ten years old it is extremely disheartening when things get thrown so far off course that you don’t even recognize the road you’re on anymore. A childhood friend of mine read my blog post the other day about going back to the beginning of a dream and provided some much needed words of encouragement that I needed to hear. He reminded me that just because I have not yet accomplished the things that I thought I would have by now that it doesn’t mean that I won’t. He reminded me that a lot of times the success comes later on in life and he let me know that he still believed in me as he always had since the 8th grade poem that a group of us wrote together.

True enough, my plans for making an established career as a writer have not worked out quite the way that I envisioned but I’m not completely sure that I would change things. I can say that now because hindsight is twenty-twenty and looking back at some of the things that certain detours in my plan have brought into my life (one main blessing being my daughter) I can honestly say that I wouldn’t trade the experiences that I’ve had or the obstacles that I have had to work through for anything. I think that when I finally do reach the position in my writing career that I am striving for that those same obstacles and experiences will provide a great foundation for the lasting success that I saw for myself from the very beginning.

There are no time limits on when a person can achieve the success that they are looking for in life. We would like to get to the level of success we desire in a hurry and sometimes that can end up being to our detriment because far too often people aren’t really truly ready for the success they are seeking. I think that we’re often tested to gauge whether or not we’re even serious about what it is that we say we want. Will we throw our dreams away at the first sign of a major hurdle? Will we get halfway down the path to our goals and then get so impatient with how long it’s taking that we turn and double back before we’ve even reached the end of the road? Just how important could our dreams be if we run away from them at the first sign of resistance?

I think things happen for a reason, be it good or bad, and we have to be sure that the journey we are on has our full commitment and that our plans of action matches our level of desire. We can’t just quit on the dreams we have because it gets a little harder than we thought it would be to achieve them. They say that the hardest battles come with the sweetest victories so just imagine how sweet the success will be if you don’t give up on the goal just because the storm became too hard to bear. You’ve already planted the seed so just make sure you keep watering the dream!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

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There’s No Lid on the Box that is Your Comfort Zone

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No lid on the box

So let’s talk about our comfort zones! No one understands needing to have a routine more than I do. I am that person that annoyingly has to have a plan, a plan to map out the plan, and have all of the plans organized in a very particular way (I also have OCD issues but that’s a story for another blog post). I don’t say this as if I believe this to necessarily be a great thing, but rather, it is one of my many flaws that I wish I could do away with.

Obviously it’s good to have some organization when you are prioritizing your goals. However, sometimes I feel hindered by my obsessive need to over-plan and excessively organize things. It’s all done in an effort to stay within my comfort zone and admittedly it has held me back from doing a lot of things and it has in many ways perpetuated the fear that I’ve always carried along with me for most of my adult life.

My fear has stopped me so many times from taking chances and seizing opportunities but that need to remain in my comfort zone and sticking with my routine has only enhanced those fears. I suppose you could say that I had found a sense of security within my comfort zone and that being safe was far more enticing than living in the unknown realities of what it means to take risks.

I don’t advocate to anyone that they stay inside the box that they’ve created for themselves. I have been trying to get out of my own box for many years now but there’s always that invisible lid that I imagine will hit me on the head and knock me back down. I have been diligently working to change that about myself and I’m going to be open and welcoming to all opportunities that may come my way. If you haven’t already, start knocking down those walls of comfort that have been surrounding you. The only lid that is on the box that you have confined yourself to is the lid that you imagined is real.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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