Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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NaNoWriMo Day # 5: Resist the Urge You Have to Edit What You Have Done So Far

November 5, 2012 jcladyluv

You’ve spotted a scene at the beginning of the story that you are dying to change. You notice some things that you didn’t include that need to be in there that will enhance the view the readers get of your character and you may have even seen a couple of unnecessary things that you need to take out. As tempting as it is for you to go back and edit that scene (or those couple of scenes), DON’T DO IT!

NaNoWriMo is a month for the first draft, the first imperfect draft. There is no editing in this month. If you start editing things now, you won’t be able to stop and you will end up losing momentum and falling behind in your word count. I know what you’re thinking. “Wouldn’t that add more words to my word count overall?”

Yes, true enough it would do that, but it would also throw your word count off. Suddenly you would have to figure out what words you counted are now deleted and what words you added should now be counted towards your overall word count tally. I know that in your mind you see all kinds of improvements that need to be made already but resist the urge. Trust me, you will have plenty of time to edit later. That’s what December is for!

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 4: Some Tips on How to Reach Your Word Count

November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 jcladyluv

I happened to stumble upon a video on youtube the other day with some tips for all those participating in NaNoWriMo on how you can better reach your designated daily word count. I found the video both informative and entertaining and I felt that I had to share it with all of you. While the tips in the video are given at the ten day mark of NaNoWri Mo, I thought I would present them to you a little ahead of the game. I hope all of you enjoy it as much as I did and that you are all doing well with your novels.

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 3: This Won’t Be the First Time During This Month That You Will Feel Guilty

November 3, 2012 jcladyluv

Are you starting to feel guilty? You are really beginning to get into your story and your characters are possibly starting to talk to you while you’re supposed to be sleeping. You might even be finding more time to write then you initially had planned on setting aside.

Now your family and/or friends may start wondering if that’s all you’re going to talk about is your novel. They may be asking you when you are going to spend time with them like you were just the other week. Then you start to feel guilty.

You’re neglecting your friends and even worse, your family. This will not be the first time during the month of November that you will feel guilt. It will come in stages. The first stage of guilt is the one to worry about most because right now, during this first week of NaNoWriMo you will try and find every excuse and reason you can think of not to finish what you have just started.

Because it is the first week, you will tell yourself “I’m not too far in to stop now,” and “is it really worth neglecting my family to finish this.” Simply put, yes, it is worth it and it may seem selfish right now at this moment but why can’t you be selfish sometimes. This goal is just for you right now but if it all goes the way you want it to it’s a goal that will work out to benefit your family as well—when you get published!

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

NaNoWriMo Day # 2: Let the Nay-Sayers in the Crowd Fuel Your Drive

November 2, 2012 jcladyluv

So this may be the day where you have one of your so-called friends (you’ll understand why I say so-called in just a second) call you up just as you’re sitting down to write and say “so you were serious about doing that? What do you really expect to get out of this?” This is when you shoot them a look through the phone (as if they can actually see you) and say “of course I’m serious, I take my writing very seriously and what I expect to get out of this is a first draft of a book that will one day be on someone’s best-seller’s list” (sorry I’m projecting my response) and you ask them as politely as possible why they would say something so negative to you.

This is the friend that either has no ambition themselves and doesn’t understand a thing about setting goals and sticking to them, or they are simply jealous that they don’t have the same drive that you do for something that they wish they could be doing. Either way, it’s not the support you really need during the month of November as you complete your first draft. OR IS IT?

We all know that it is wonderful to have the positive people around you, supporting you, rooting for your success every step of the way. But what we may take for granted is how it is just as important to have those people who don’t believe in you and who are rooting for you to fail as a motivation as well. That in now way means that you convince yourself to listen to those nay-sayers because they are wrong for not believing in you and they are wrong to doubt you (and when you do hit the New York Times Best-Seller’s list they will really be kicking themselves) but let their discouragement be your motivation.

Let it be the fuel for you to get up early in the morning (or whatever your designated time to write is) and write those words everyday. Let it drive you, if nothing else, to prove them wrong. And when November 30^th gets here you will have the satisfaction of knowing that not only do you have a new novel in the works to edit but that you can also be satisfied that you never gave up like your non-supporters all thought you would. Keep going and forget what anyone else has to say!

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

Twas the Day Before NaNoWriMo

October 31, 2012 jcladyluv

Okay I know it’s Halloween and most of you are probably busy getting the children ready to go trick-or-treating in their costumes or off to their Halloween parties. In all of the Halloween candy rush don’t forget what tonight is. For those of you who have signed up to get lost in the world of words this November (National Novel Writing Month) it is the last night of freedom (in a sense) that you have to not be stressed over whether you met a certain word count requirement for the day.

By now you have hopefully already completed your outline, done your research, gained an intimate knowledge of your characters, and scheduled your time to write to suit your needs and your daily responsibilities. If you’ve gotten all of that checked off your to do list, then you are practically ready to go come November 1^st (that’s tomorrow by the way) but if you haven’t prepared then don’t panic. You could always do what a lot of writers do during NaNoWriMo anyway, wing it. Just start from point A and continue from there.

Also an important thing to remember for those who have not put tons of preparation into this, you DO NOT have to start your story from the very beginning. I must admit that I myself have a hard time starting a story in any other place but the beginning but I’ve tried starting at a different chapter but number one a time or two and, to my surprise, it did not kill my passion for the story or disturb the flow once I went back to the beginning.

If you can’t think of how to start your story off, then begin with chapter two, or three, or why not even start at the end. No matter where you start your story on November 1^st, just start! I’ll be blogging helpful tips and tricks to get through the crazy event that is NaNoWriMo throughout the month so make sure you check back from time to time. Until then…Happy NaNoWriMo-ing!

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

Waiting Out the Storm…Doing Nothing!

October 30, 2012 jcladyluv

This past weekend everyone awaited Hurricane Sandy with all of its anticipated destruction that was to come with it. Everyone stocked up at the store, making sure they had enough non-perishable, batteries for their flashlights, sand bags if you happened to live close enough to the water, and most likely people made sure that they had something to keep them busy while they were made to be confined to their homes for about two days or so.

I managed to make it to the store to get a few essentials (and by essentials I mostly mean snacks) but I already had flashlights with batteries, and I have tons to be able to keep me busy because there are tons of things that I have been unable to get done lately. I also had the impossible task of keeping a child who very much loves being out of the house from being bored.

All of the things I could have chosen to do during my stay indoors for the last two days I chose to do absolutely nothing. I mean I played with my daughter and I watched TV, I even managed to do some reading that was long overdue. But I can admit that I was really lazy these last two days.

But tomorrow is a new day, there’s no more Hurricane Sandy, no more mandatory need to stay indoors, no more excuses that I can make. Tomorrow it is time to put in some much needed work on all of the things I must get done. But for now, I’m going to go back to reading my book. Hope all of you are being productive, and if you’re not, I at least hope that you’re enjoying being able to do nothing because I’m sure it doesn’t happen as often as you need it to!

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

NaNoWriMo Reminder: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect On the First Draft

October 25, 2012 jcladyluv

I was reading blog posts this morning, catching up on posts from the last couple of days of some of the blogs that I subscribe to. I came across one by Catherine Ryan Howard discussing National Novel Writing Month and some of the backlash that the yearly event gets from “real writers” who turn down their noses at the idea of creating a novel in 30 days. Her blog post listed a whole host of reasons why she discarded the notion that NaNoWriMo is just nonsense and somehow belittles the profession of writing.

Until reading her blog post I had never known anyone to say anything bad about NaNoWriMo or that indicated that NaNoWriMo was something that was not for “real writers”. After all, I’ve done NaNoWriMo for many years and I don’t consider myself anything less than a real writer. It got me to thinking about just how many people that we don’t realize actually get the novels that they began writing during a National Novel Writing Month event published and just how important something like NaNoWriMo really is.

It also made me think about how many people do themselves in by trying to actually complete a novel (writing, editing, rewriting, and re-editing again many times over) in those 30 days. Maybe that’s where people get overwhelmed at with the thought of NaNoWriMo. So many people (myself included) have tried to complete the impossible task of writing and actually finishing a novel in 30 days that they forget to have fun while they are doing it.

Yes writing is (hard) work, but I think that a lot of times what we writers tend to forget during the month of November is that it should still be fun as well. There should still be passion behind the words we write and not just a continuous rush to get it done no matter what. If you are striving for a perfect draft the first time out the gate during NaNoWriMo then you may just be disappointed.

Don’t get caught up in exactly what the end product is supposed to be. After you’ve come up with the plot, you’ve done your outline, and you’ve mapped out your schedule, just sit down and write.

Don’t try and make it perfect, don’t go back and edit while you’re writing, don’t agonize over whether you’re going to be able to get it published once it’s done. Just sit down, enjoy the characters that are honoring you with telling their story, and write! I promise you that if you enjoy what you are writing, then people will almost certainly enjoy reading what you have written.

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

Does One Mistake Really Erase All of the Good?

October 23, 2012 jcladyluv

FALL FROM GRACE. These are the three words being used to depict the athlete Lance Armstrong and all that he accomplished throughout his entire career. Of course we all know that Lance Armstrong has just recently had his seven Tour de France titles stripped away after being found guilty of “doping” during his career and those races. On top of that he also had major endorsement deals that rescinded their offers due to the controversy.

Now I don’t know whether or not Lance Armstrong is in fact guilty of doping in order to win all of those races that he won or is this just a witch hunt that they are on and pinning the bulk of the blame on him. Frankly I don’t really care if he did or didn’t because in my eyes what they are doing to him and to his name is a disgrace. Stripping him of his titles doesn’t change the fact that he did win those races and I don’t know too many people who could have done what he did, on or off drugs.

What is really a shame is that in order to punish him for a mistake that they have absolutely no real tangible proof that he did (only hearsay by his so called ex-teammates and results from blood work that could very easily have been medication from his cancer treatment) they have tainted his name along with all of the good that he has done. His foundation, the Live Strong Foundation does good work for cancer research and it also goes to great lengths to provide free services to help anyone who is affected by cancer and cannot monetarily take care of those responsibilities, and recently he was forced to appoint someone else as the head of it in order to preserve its integrity.

There are a lot of people who are angry about this and disgusted with Lance Armstrong but let me tell you why I am not one of them. It is because we are all human and we do not have the right to pass personal judgments on anyone else not knowing what they live through on a daily basis. I’m not naïve to think that Lance might not have doped up in the latter part of his racing career but I certainly don’t believe that he did in the beginning. What does stripping him of his titles do, really? He knows he still won them. The world knows that he still won them. When they talk about stripping his titles in the news they still refer to him as the one who won 7 Tour de France races.

What it does do is send a message to others, especially the children of the future, that if you dare to make one mistake, that suddenly means that all the good that you did do means nothing now. Is that really what we want to communicate to people? That if, God forbid, you mess up in your life that you don’t deserve another chance and that you have to be beat down for your mistake continuously.

We make mistakes in life. We do things that we once said we would never ever do in a million years. People don’t just wake up with the idea of doing something morally and ethically wrong. People don’t intentionally set out to make their lives a circus. People do expect that if they make a mistake that it will not erase every good thing about them. You expect to be given second chances and you expect to not be deemed a bad person simply because you made an error in judgment. What ever happened to forgiveness and understanding? How are we supposed to ever learn from the mistakes that we make if no one will ever let us forget them?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Writer That Doesn’t Put Themselves Out There Doesn’t Get Seen

October 18, 2012 jcladyluv

It is very hard to put yourself out there in any capacity, be it love or your career. It stirs up feelings of fear of being rejected, not being good enough, not being accepted, not succeeding at your end goal, and even of how you will handle it if you do succeed. Being a writer, you find yourself having to put yourself out there quite often, at least until you have put in enough hard work and effort to where the people you want to write for are finally coming to you.

It takes time to get to that point, where you are no longer the cat in the cat and mouse game of becoming successful at earning your income as a writer, and have finally become the mouse being sought after. I used to wonder when I started trying to make a go at this, just how long do I have to keep putting myself all out there only to continually be rejected time and time again before someone comes looking for me.

I realize now, and frankly way too late, that in order to become and remain a successful writer, you can’t ever stop putting yourself out there. Even more embarrassing and much to my deep regret, I have realized that I have wasted so much time feeling all of those fears and playing into them, that I haven’t actually been putting myself out there (not nearly as much as I should have been anyway) and I only have myself to blame for not being a household name by now.

The blame doesn’t fall on the editor’s and the people who haven’t accepted my wonderful words and given me that chance that I am dying to have in order to get into all of those national magazines that I want to be featured in. I only have myself to blame for not completely putting myself out there. They can’t accept what I am too afraid to submit.

A writer’s only way of becoming published, of becoming that success that we all dream about becoming, is to keep putting themselves out there. No matter what the outcome, whether it is good or bad, they have to keep going for it, even when it seems impossible; especially when it seems to be impossible. A fighter never wins the battle if they never fight to begin with.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”