Tag: planning

https://www.facebook.com/jimmetta.carpenter

https://www.amazon.com/author/jccarpenter

https://www.write2bematters.com

https://www.youtube.com/c/AuthorJCCarpenter

https://www.pinterest.com/jcladyluv/_saved/

https://ko-fi.com/authorjccarpenter

http://www.tinyletter.com/Author_JCCarpenter

Also check out my new Red Bubble Shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Write2BeMatters/shop for some cool and fun stickers and also check out my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=74026650 and think about becoming a Patron!

It is Now Planning Season

November 30, 2020 jcladyluv

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

Writer/Editor

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

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

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

October 5, 2020 jcladyluv

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

Writer/Editor

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

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

It’s Time for Another Writing Event

June 29, 2020 jcladyluv

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 1^st (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

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

Celebrating the Success of Others

October 21, 2019 jcladyluv

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

Writer/Editor

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

To Plan or Not to Plan?

October 3, 2019 jcladyluv

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

Writer/Editor

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

https://www.facebook.com/confessionsoftheunpleasantlyplump

Plant Seeds, Water Dreams, and Persist Until Success Blooms

June 29, 2018June 29, 2018 jcladyluv

planting the Seeds of Dreams 2 I’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 8^th 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

Writer/Editor

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

https://www.facebook.com/confessionsoftheunpleasantlyplump

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

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018 jcladyluv

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

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

https://www.facebook.com/confessionsoftheunpleasantlyplump

Don’t Over Plan Your Way Out of Opportunities

March 16, 2016March 16, 2016 jcladyluv

I woke up today and realized something. I waste entirely too much time planning. I have always been a planner, one who has to have a list for everything and everything in its place before I go for the end goal. When I was younger it worked for me and my love for being the list maker and the consistent planner grew. But as I got older the plans and the lists began to hinder me because what I never accounted for in all my planning and goal setting was life just unfolding as it was going to, as it was inevitably meant to.

I have a tendency to plan so thoroughly that by the time I am done with the plan the opportunity to actually follow through with any of those plans has long passed me by. I will think of something, have a vision for something if you will, and by the time I have worked through all the lists and plans it ends up being too late and someone else has presented something to the world far too similar to mine for me to move ahead with it.

It’s like the story where the man is waiting to be rescued from the sinking boat he’s on and every person that is sent to rescue him he tells them that he is waiting on God to rescue him and to take someone else. When he drowns he asks God why didn’t he save him and God tells him that he sent three different people to rescue him and he refused them. Essentially he sent the opportunity that he needed and he missed it. I feel like I might have missed far too many opportunities that were sent my way because it didn’t fit with the plan, or undoubtedly because I hadn’t finished planning for that opportunity and I was blinded to what was presenting itself right in front of me.

For example, quite a long time ago I had an idea for a show about women living their lives behind prison bars and about what they go through, how they get treated, how they maneuver their new lives. I started making plans and lists but it was never quite as perfect as I needed it to be and before I knew it I was hearing about this new show on Netflix, “Orange is the New Black” and (No, no one stole my idea, I never communicated it to anyone else) I watched it and felt deflated as I saw what I had been planning for unfold from someone else’s imagination. It was my own fault and my own neurosis that kept me from what could’ve been a breakthrough opportunity had I only not wasted so much time trying to make it perfect.

I say all this to say that if you too are like I was, like I have been, stop wasting so much time trying to make everything just right, and planning everything through to a tee. I’m not saying don’t plan at all, or don’t have your lists. I’m saying don’t focus so much on the lists and the plans that you forget the goal, the vision, and so you don’t miss the opportunities that can come your way while you’re busy planning. Sometimes the opportunities can be so small that if you blink you’ll miss it so pay attention to what’s in front of you before your lists and plans are all that you end up with. Until next time… plan less, live more!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://www.facebook.com/confessionsoftheunpleasantlyplump

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

The Downside of Being a Constant Planner

January 6, 2015 jcladyluv

So it’s not a secret to anyone who knows me or who reads my blog regularly that I am a notorious planner. I am seriously one of those people who does not like to deviate from the set schedule and due to that I usually miss out on some spontaneous things that could provide me with unplanned on blessings and opportunities. Now last year I had my plans but I tried to be a little more relaxed about sticking to them and perhaps be a tad bit more spontaneous with my time. Well it didn’t really work out so well for me last year because I think I just got too relaxed.

So this year my plan was to not only make my plans for my goals and projects but I read constantly about how important it is to create a schedule for how your day unfolds which of course includes (mainly) my writing time. So I even did that. So here’s the thing with creating a schedule where you follow point by point of what to do at certain times, it doesn’t always quite work out how you plan it. The downside to being someone like me who is a person who has to have things planned out and very routine is that life is very seldom routine nor can it be maticulously planned out.

I will tell you that every time something didn’t go as planned last year it threw me even further off course and got me so off track but it did teach me something. That there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone who wants to plan out everything, or at least everything that is important and on your goal list, but you just have to know how to not be completely thrown off track and devastated when something goes diffrently than how you planned it. I learned that I can’t be so opposed to change or something that’s not routine, that it leaves me completely dumbfounded when life throws change right in my face and says to hell with my routine.

This first full week of the New Year was planned it out. I had it laid out when I was supposed to work on what and how much time would be dedicated to each task and sad to say that the first days of this week have all gone differently then how I planned it out. Between the weather or just simple circumstance, all of my plans got turned into new unexpected ones that wouldn’t have been my choice. But I have not let it derail me or throw me off course and I readjusted, and pretty well if I don’t say so myself.

I do think that it is funny or odd how us creative types who love to be free with our emotions and words and our art are sometimes so in need of the structure of strategic planning and scheduling. I suppose because our art is in many ways a little chaotic, we have to find ways to, in our minds, structure that creative chaos. I suppose even in us trying to structure our creativity we can’t forget that little bit of chaotic freedom that is still necessary.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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