Success – Page 15 – Write 2 Be

What We Don’t Get

January 24, 2014 jcladyluv

Why is it that we tend to always focus on what we didn’t do? Think about it. When we make a to-do list for the day or the week, once the day or week is over, all we focus on are the tasks that didn’t get checked off. I’m guilty of this myself. I sit and stress and beat myself up over the two or three things on a list of ten that didn’t get done instead of celebrating, or at the very least, acknowledging what I actually got done.

I suppose when you step back and look at a list of ten things and see that you got at least seven of them done you are supposed to give yourself a pat on the back but all I ever see is that I didn’t get EVERYTHING done. We hold ourselves to such high expectations for our own accomplishments sometimes that we forget to take some pride in the things that did get done, for the good job that we have done thus far.

God didn’t build the universe in one day so why is it that we think that we can get everything done all at once. All of the things worth having, the dreams that we are creating, the legacy that we are building, they can’t all be completed at a moment’s notice. They take time. Don’t rush what will eventually get done in the time that it’s supposed to be accomplished.

If we want the best we have to have patience because rushed work doesn’t always turn out to be the best work. Take your time and give yourself credit for what has already been completed. Don’t let what you don’t have diminish what you already do have!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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How Big Should the Sacrifice Be?

July 10, 2013July 10, 2013 jcladyluv

Well my Fourth of July holiday did not go quite as I had expected it to go. The plans that I had fell through and I in many ways felt as if I was sacrificed and a little taken for granted. It made me wonder just how much is too much to sacrifice for your dream. I know that I have said in the past that there is nothing that I wouldn’t sacrifice (unless it had to do with my daughter) to become the successful writer and media mogul that I feel I am destined to be. Perhaps I should change that to nothing within reason.

I think that sometimes people get so caught up in the pursuit of their dream and their vision that they have moments where they start to neglect the people that they claim are important to them and begin to disregard how they feel. They may even scold those people for “not understanding what it is they are trying to do” and try and make it as if they have done something wrong when in reality they may be starting to forget that there are things outside of their pursuit and their goals that are just as important.

I think that it is 100 percent important for people who have that dream and that vision and that place that they are trying so desperately to reach, to try everything they can (with reason, and that is legal) to get themselves there. Having said that, I do not think that it is okay to forget or neglect the people who have been there for you during the process or to act as if the only thing that matters is what you want, at least not if those people are supposed to be your true friends and your support system.

People that are there for you and support you on your path are just as important as the journey that you are taking and I think that we as artists or just as entrepreneurs should try and remember that when we are pushing the people closest to us away for the sake of our craft. I am willing to sacrifice many things for the sake of my dreams, for my destiny, but I refuse to act as if the people that are around me and that have been there for me don’t matter just to pursue them. Now if there is someone in your life that you realize that you have been neglecting or taking for granted lately for the sake of your craft and in pursuit of those goals, just remember that those people are just as important and just as our craft, or careers, need tending to, so do the relationships that we hold dear.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Write 2 Be Magazine is now out so please go check it out at http://write2bemagazine.com/. Also please go and join the magazine on twitter https://twitter.com/write2bemag, join the email listing for the magazine or submit a request for an author interview at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com, and also like the Write 2 Be Magazine fan page https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Are You Nurturing Your Writing Craft?

June 12, 2013 jcladyluv

So I’ve been sitting here thinking about all of the novels that I have started and not finished in the past. I love when I go back and read something that I’ve written and I start to think “I wrote this” in amazement that it actually reads like something other than mess that I thought it would read like. But there are the works that I have almost, but never completed that I will read over again and see that the person that wrote that specific piece of writing definitely needed some work and to study her craft.

Over the years I have done just that. I have picked up and read any book that I could get my hands on about specific genres that I wanted to learn about writing, or books on technique and point of view. There are so many ways that I feel I can nurture my craft and make myself an even better, and a more confident writer. I consider my writing to always be a work in progress. I think that when you are a writer, you are never really finished learning when it comes to your craft. I wanted to share with you some ways that you can work on nurturing your craft as a writer.

1) Of course read books on your craft or the craft that you want to direct yourself towards writing. Whether it is mystery, young adult, science fiction, suspense, drama, or even plays, study it.

2) Make sure to read the kinds of books that you are trying to write. If you want to be a mystery writer, then read as many mystery books as you can get your hands on. If you want to write young adult novels then read plenty of young adult books. No matter what you do, just read!

3) Research other writers. Not just their writing, but research their lives, their philosophies, their values. Research how they achieved and maintained their success.

4) Attend writing conferences and workshops to learn things about your craft from a different perspective. There is only so much that you can learn from a book without visibly seeing someone who has put these techniques into practice.

5) Pay attention to the work that is being produced that is along the lines of what you want to do. If writing movies is your thing, watch the movies that inspire you and that have made you want to write films in the first place. If it is plays, then go see as many plays as you can feasibly manage to go and see. You have to be able to see that what you want to create is possible and a reality that you can make happen if you want to badly enough.

Writing, despite what some people might think, is something that is not easy to do. It’s not as if you can just pick up a pen (or open up a computer) and just start writing seamlessly. It takes research, and preparation, and a lot of time and writing is certainly not for people who want to make a quick dollar (that’s not to say that you can’t make money writing).

It is easy to get comfortable within our writing and our own style of writing and sometimes we forget that to grow we have to keep nurturing our skills as a writer, keep sharpening them, so to speak. You don’t want to get stuck writing the same thing every time you work on a new project. You don’t want readers to read book after book of yours and start to think that your writing is predictable and like they are reading the same type of book every time they pick yours up. Don’t stay in that comfortable spot within your writing.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Are We Faking It to Our Own Detriment?

May 22, 2013 jcladyluv

There is this mantra that people have come to live by that is supposed to help motivate them to keep moving forward and not get hung up on what they haven’t achieved. “Fake it until you make it” is what people tell you to do when you are trying to achieve certain goals that you haven’t quite reached yet. So often I have been told that even if I don’t have it all together and I haven’t achieved all of the goals that I am striving towards that I should just essentially pretend that I have made it, that I have it all together, and that I am already a success even though I still have a long way to go.

It sounded like good advice and I completely understand what good intentions are meant by this mantra. I have even repeated this advice to others because I firmly believed that it was the right attitude to have. Now I’m not so sure. I mean I don’t think that you are ever supposed to lose sight of the goals and dreams that you are moving towards accomplishing but I am not so sure that faking it is the right way to really go about it.

I read a blog post last night about how the mantra of faking it could actually be the reason your message is falling on deaf ears (so to speak). It made me think, if I am trying to promote brand ME and I want people to connect to me, do I want people to get the me that I am pretending to be, that I think that they want, or do I want people to connect to the real me, the me that just doesn’t have it all together yet. If I am not being authentic, then what is the point of me trying to get my words out there and to connect with readers?

Everyone wants to be accepted for who they are, imperfections and all, but how can that be possible if we are all too busy pretending to be what it is we wish we were, what we think people want us to be. No real good comes of pretending to be someone other than yourself and it is just deceptive to think that we have to put on this false pretense. So I thought that I would real today (I try to be real most of the time but sometimes I hide behind my insecurities) and share things I don’t normally say out loud.

I am a writer, true enough, but I do not have it all together. I am not as successful as I sometimes try to pretend to be. Sometimes, frankly I am just winging it with this whole writing thing and I don’t have even half of the answers. I don’t write as much as I should. I don’t seem to have a knack for this social media thing so my name is not as well known as I had hoped it would be at this point in my life.

To be completely honest, some days I really have no idea what I am doing, I am just trying to be the best writer that I know how to be and I am trying to hold on to that passion that I have for writing. There are days when trying to focus on the business side of being a writer is so frustrating I start to think about never writing again. I question regularly, despite my saying that I know writing is my true purpose, if maybe writing has already served its purpose in my life and that maybe (and only in moments of temporary insanity do I really believe this) it is time to let it go.

I try not to admit those things even to myself so saying them here for everyone to see is hard for me but I feel better having done it. I feel like there has to be someone else out there that gets it and are just as tired as I am of pretending to be something that they are not and who understand where I am coming from. Isn’t it less pressure to just be yourself? As imperfect as you might be, even if you feel like everything is falling a part, be the best version of yourself that you can be. Let’s not fake it until we make it, let’s just make it by being real.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Holding On For the Breakthrough Moment

May 21, 2013 jcladyluv

Yesterday I had a day where it seemed like I just kept hitting the wall. Just when it looked like I was starting to get close to that light that lets me know things are going to be okay I felt like another boulder (not a rock) was dropped in my way. I felt like just giving up and I took a moment to cry a little (I’m not ashamed to admit that I cry when I get upset) because honestly I started to feel like things were hopeless.

But today was a new day and with the tragedy that has just taken place in Oklahoma with the devastation of the tornados it really puts things into perspective. I can’t take the gifts that I have been given for granted just because of a moment that seems like it can’t be fixed. I have to be grateful that I still have more moments to fix things. A moment of frustration is not going to keep me from tunneling through to that light on the other side of the wall that keeps blocking me from my dreams and my purpose.

I opened my latest Tyler Perry email today and there on the screen in front of me (right on time as usual) was a message to all of the frustrated dreamers. In essence, he was letting all of the dreamers out there who are hitting that wall know, to keep powering through until we breakthrough to the other side of that wall. That while we are tunneling through that wall, to be grateful for the things that we have to go through on the way, yes even those things that make us want to rip our hair out and scream, because it will be those things that make us stronger and more prepared for when we finally do have our breakthrough moment.

So often we make it all the way to that wall and then we give up right before the breakthrough (just like in the picture above) because we didn’t see it coming. Then we just end up missing our moment, our opportunity and all of the opportunities that were supposed to follow. We (yes me included) have to stop giving up so easily. Just because things seem hopeless at the moment, we can’t just stop pushing through because that light that we are looking for could literally be right around the corner when we decide it’s just too hard to keep going.

Tyler Perry included a prayer in his email for the frustrated dreamers “God, help me hold on, help me to get to what I dream of, help me to honor where I am today so that I can appreciate where I will be tomorrow. In Jesus’ name.” That prayer is something I know I am going to say (on top of my many other conversations with God) so that I can motivate myself to keep pushing through no matter what, until I get to the other side of that wall. I know I can make it and I’m not giving up, you shouldn’t either!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Sometimes It Is Risky to Be Yourself

May 8, 2013 jcladyluv

I can think of about a dozen people who I admire. People whose success I would love to have. People whose life seems so ideal and who I wish I could be like in one way or another. I think that we all have those days where there is someone who we wouldn’t mind trading places with, even for a day. However, we can only ever be ourselves and we have to learn to be the best person that we can be.

People always declare how you should be an original version of yourself and not a bad imitation of someone else. You’re supposed to achieve the level of success you want by remaining true to who you are and not copying anyone else. I definitely believe that a person should always be who they are but being original can be tricky.

There is always the risk that someone won’t be accepting of you or what you do and as a writer, while it is not important for everyone to like you or your writing you have to be accepted on some level to be successful. The thing is, I am me, I am who I am, love me or hate, take it or leave it, and I won’t apologize for it. However, sometimes there are days when I feel like being myself is either not good enough for people or that people just can’t handle who I really am.

I know you’re not supposed to care about who accepts you and who doesn’t but what if I do care? What if I want people to care about my words and my feelings and what I’m going through? What if I want people to listen to what I have to say and what my ideas are and not dismiss them as if they don’t matter? What if I want people to accept me, flaws and all, and stop wishing that I was something that I am not?

Writers are typically thought of as different, and weird, and isolated but that doesn’t mean we want to be. I am definitely not like a lot of other people and I have spent a large part of my adolescent years trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be, never really being who I was. Sometimes it seems like in finally being who I am and not trying to be some version of somebody else I end up standing alone a lot of the time. I wonder whether or not I should have just kept being the copy everyone seemed to like better. Have you ever felt like being yourself just wasn’t good enough?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

What I Got From My Not So Successful Camp Experience

April 30, 2013 jcladyluv

Well this is the last day of CampNaNoWriMo and I wish that I could report that I have finished my novel which is what I set out to do. However, I did not manage to finish the novel. In fact I wasn’t even able to get nearly as much done as I thought I would be able to. Granted I did get some work done on it and I reignited the energy to actually finish it, it’s just that I had wanted to be able to move onto the next project soon and I simply can’t now until this one is finished.

Even though I didn’t make it through camp season with a successful outcome it was not completely without its usefulness. It got me started again when I had been stuck for quite some time. Sometimes when we attempt to do something and manage to fall short of our expected goals we have to keep ourselves from dwelling on what wasn’t accomplished. Instead, we have to focus on the accomplishments that were made and how much further we are in the process then we were before we accomplished those particular goals.

Sometimes it’s not about winning the race so much as it is about showing up and putting in every ounce of effort that we can muster up. So remember when you are pursuing your goals and you are giving it your all that your best is good enough even if you don’t get everything that you were going after. It’s not the winning that matters the most, it’s the fight that you put into the race.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Who Is In Your Corner?

April 25, 2013 jcladyluv

It is always good to have someone in your corner. Someone who reassures you when your confidence is beginning to waiver and who is going to stand beside you come hell or high water. Everyone deserves to have that kind of support. Typically you are going to find that support within your family and your very close knit friends but what do you say to those who are supposed to be your family and don’t have your back. How do you respond to the people who are supposed to always believe in you telling you that you won’t make it?

I try to figure that out because I have several of those in my family, people who consistently let me know that they don’t think that I am going to reach my destination. I tune them out most of the time but when you hear people talk about not knowing where they would be without their family believing in them it seems sad when I look at my family and think I don’t know where I would be if I were to actually listen to them. Yes I actually do know. I would have given up on my dreams a long time ago because that’s what they’ve always wanted me to do.

Every goal that you go after is always easier to reach if you have a few people standing in your corner. Not a lot of people, just two or three is good enough to help remind you that you are strong enough and to keep you from turning around and running away from the dreams you have for yourself. I know that I may not have family that is standing in my corner, praying that my successes are made a reality, but I do have at least one really good friend, my best friend, who I know will always be there.

We may not always get to have the crowd of believers that we want around us but then again do we really need a big crowd? Sure it would be nice if everyone was as sure of your choices as you are (most of the time) but truthfully you can get where you going without that big crowd. You want that support system in the corner standing by but the most important person that you need in your corner is you.

You have to fight for that dream and you have to do it regardless of whether you are fighting with that big crowd, or you are fighting for it alone. No matter who I have or don’t have in my corner, I know one thing. I have me (and of course God) and that’s all there really is. So no matter how large your corner is expanding make sure that you remember that no one can fight for that dream you have like you can.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

The Before and the After—A Picture Tells the Whole Story

April 10, 2013 jcladyluv

Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely hate taking pictures. Not taking pictures from behind the camera lens but to actually be in front of the camera lens itself. So I’ve been on a weight loss journey for the last few years now and I committed to this journey no matter how long it took for me to get to a place of being healthy (and yes thinner too) and happy. I also knew that I couldn’t do this quickly and rapidly because I had tried that before and it didn’t stick and that I didn’t want to lose weight surgically (not knocking it for anyone who has had weight loss surgery—just not for me) but rather naturally and that meant it was going to have to be slow and steady.

I’ll admit that at certain periods throughout the process it has been slower than others and of course there’s moments where you reach a new stage and you plateau. However, I have managed to remain vigilant and have lost well over a hundred pounds but yet I still don’t like taking pictures. My best friend asked me once if I had any before pictures so that I had something to compare things to because I constantly have an issue of looking in the mirror and thinking that nothing has changed regardless of the fact that my clothes have gotten looser on me and my face is visibly different, but as I stated before I have never liked to take pictures with me in them.

So today when I went to the gym (knowing that I had taken a picture for the membership card when I first joined the gym) I asked if I could take a new picture for my membership card. When she took the picture and printed out the new card I took out my old one and looked at the side by side view (you can see it below-sorry it’s not a clearer picture) and the difference was, in my opinion, very noticeable. I was ecstatic and overjoyed and of course I went and showed everyone in the gym my before and after and one lady even pointed to the before picture and asked who it was. That motivated me even more.

Here's my before and after... See the difference! — Here’s my before and after… See the difference!

What does any of this have to do with my writing you might ask? Well you know they say a picture is worth a thousand words and in today’s case my before and after pictures made a lot of things clearer to me. That before picture was not a happy woman, perhaps a woman who faked it with some success, but definitely not happy. But the after picture was a happy person, a more confident person, a more secure person, and a healthier person. It in many ways mirrors my journey of writing that I spoke of with such frustration in yesterday’s post.

My writing career, years ago, around the time of that before picture, was existent (barely) but it wasn’t moving in any direction. It had gotten off the ground (maybe about a couple inches) but it hadn’t took off, it hadn’t even gotten midway, it was just stagnant hovering somewhere around the point of the wheels of a plane being an inch off the ground but not yet ready to take off. It has been a slow journey in that regard as well but unlike with my weight loss journey where I had succumb to the reality that slow and steady is better for me and in the end will garner more promising results, more lasting results, with writing I had wanted it to be a rush to take off. I hadn’t thought about the fact that if slow and steady can win the race in one area, why wouldn’t it be the right track in the other area as well.

My writing career is still definitely not where I want it to be but it is definitely beginning to take shape and it seems to be ready to take off. Just as with my before and after pictures in my road to a healthier and happier version of myself, I couldn’t see the progress before and it appeared as if nothing was really happening, my writing career has its before and after points as well. My writing career, my writing style, has changed and taken different shapes right along with me and looking at the body of my work over the years I can see the progress now. I can see the fruits of all of my hard work and I am just as overjoyed at that as I was to look at my before and after pictures from this morning.

Sometimes to see the bigger picture, you really do have to capture it in a picture. A picture doesn’t just show the physical changes in a person but sometimes you can see a whole story in the person you are looking at in that picture, the emotional changes, the mental changes, the career changes. So what would your before and after of you look like? What story would it tell to the world?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

My Younger Writer Fantasies

March 27, 2013 jcladyluv

I was reading an email ezine that I subscribe to from Christina Katz this morning that got me thinking about the side of writing that I don’t often like to think about. That would be the business side of being a writer. It’s the side that has to eventually kick in if you really want to turn your creativity into your source of income and have the ability to make a living doing something that you love to do. Apparently it is the side that I haven’t figured out how to turn all the way on yet.

There are those who can manage being the creative person for a designated period of time and then switch on the business person when necessary for a separate length of time. Then there is me, and other writers like me, who just simply are not born business people. I am the creative person, not the business person. For as long as I can remember I never liked to deal with the business side of anything. But I think that was the fantasies of my younger writer self that just didn’t know any better.

Christina Katz spoke about writers who, when they are younger, have this big idea of being discovered and turned into an overnight success, living an ideal life free from all daily trials and tribulations. I was that writer. I didn’t think so then but looking back on that time now I can see that there were a lot of things about being a writer that I wasn’t factoring in. Things like hard work (on the business end), extreme work ethic, determination, and patience. One more thing I didn’t factor in was confidence. Not necessarily confidence in my writing (because I always knew that writing was what I was born to do) but confidence in the person writing those words, confidence in me.

I thought that I would just be discovered one day, that someone would read my words and feel that they had to be the one who discovered me. I thought that I would be under the umbrella of a major publishing house with a publicists and a person who did marketing professionally so that someone who knew what they were doing could get my name out there.

I imagined living in New York (Manhattan at that) at a young age, working for national magazines and newspapers, and being on the New York Time’s Bestsellers list. I imagined that by the age of 30 I would already have had a dozen or so books out, on bookshelves, or whatever else there was that sold books. What I didn’t imagine, was having to be the publisher, and the publicist, and the marketer, all for myself.

I mean you see it happen to other writers (or so you think because that’s how things appear) and you think why can’t that be me. The truth is that just because it seems like people such as Steven King, or J.K. Rowling, or Tyler Perry were overnight successes with no obstacles in their way, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a great deal of the other side that went into that success. At some point there is a need to tap into that business side of the writer self.

I’ve been trying to avoid it for years now and it may have just been to my detriment but I have to stop fighting the business side of being a writer. In a perfect world I would love to just focus on my creativity and have my talent be able to stand for itself and propel me forward but that just isn’t a realistic ideal to cling to. I can’t just worry about figuring in time for writing and all of the creative projects I have in the works. I have to figure in the time to be my publisher, and my publicist, as well as my marketer. I have to be realistic in the fact that I can not be the writer who solely focuses on the creativity of it all without fully committing to the business of it all as well. Time to dismantle those younger writer fantasies I once had! Did you fantasize up the writer life in your mind?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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