Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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When Life Gives You Teachable Moments…

May 15, 2012 jcladyluv

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”

~Author Unknown

In being a mother there are always those moments where you just sit back and let your child learn their hard lessons on their own, usually the hard way. However, there are other times when you see your child going through some of the same things that you may have went through when you were around their age, and you want to just stop them and advise them with your experience as their guide. The lessons don’t always sink in, but you still want to take that moment and make it a teachable one.

While it may not make sense to them at that moment, much like you did when you got older, they will see the value in that lesson when they least expect it. Every now and then, you will even teach yourself those same lessons all over again while trying to impart wisdom on them.

Recently I have been trying to help my daughter deal with the issue of being teased and picked on and bullied at school by her classmates. It’s been painful to see her go from loving to go to school and learn new things to hating the fact that she has to go because of those very kids in her class. I try my best to help her try and find ways to deal with the situation but so far, nothing has really stuck.

I even try to use my experience of having gone through the exact same things when I was in elementary school and having to learn the ways to deal with it the hard way and it seems to help her for about a week (if that) but then she started acting out in class (which is completely unlike her) in response to her classmates bothering her. When she tries to blame whatever they did to antagonize her for the reason why she chose to act out in class, I make sure to let her know that no one else is responsible for her actions but her.

I remind her that she is supposed to know what’s right and wrong and that no matter what someone else does to her, she knows the appropriate ways to respond and that acting out is not one of them. She cries that she doesn’t understand why they are mean to her and because I don’t know why, I just tell her that she can’t control how people feel or what they do, but she can control how she reacts to them.

I reminded her of how much she loves school, and loves to learn new things and that she shouldn’t allow the children in her class to have that much power over her. As I was telling her this I began to remind myself of the very same thing with certain negative people in my life.

I spent a lot of time in my youth worried about what everyone was going to say about me. I worried whether people were going to like me and I went out of my way doing things (not extremely terrible things) that were out of character for me because I wanted certain people to like me. It worked a lot of the times but then I never really knew if it was me who they liked or just the person I was pretending to be for them.

Even though I don’t bother pretending for anyone anymore, there are certain people, one in particular, that I still find myself wanting their approval. But having to try and teach my daughter to not allow other people to dictate what she does or who she is, I realize that that lesson is not just for her, it’s one that I am still not finished learning.

A person’s negativity only has power over you if you allow it to and you should never, no matter who that person is, allow someone to have that much control over what you do or how you feel. No matter if that person is the closest of friends or even a family member you can not allow that person’s actions or words dictate yours.

We are all responsible for our own actions and choices, and yes, our inaction as well. If we allow someone’s hurtful words or behavior to keep us down and keep us from doing something that we know in our heart is right then we can not place the blame on them. No one can have that kind of power over you unless you give them that power.

What we do or don’t do; the dreams we carry out or don’t carry out; are our own responsibilities and no one else’s. It may be wrong for someone to purposely try and tear us down but we are the only ones that can allow them to succeed.

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

Time Sure Does Fly When Your Goals Aren’t Being Met

May 11, 2012May 11, 2012 jcladyluv

The year so far has gone by so fast already. We are already in the month of May and I find myself feeling like I just want to hit the rewind button and begin this year all over again.

I had set out to do so many things this year and once again I am in another year of endless letdowns (some of my own making). I don’t know if it is that I set my goals for this year way too high or if I just didn’t bust my ass hard enough to make them happen by any means necessary (probably the latter).

I wanted to travel this year (nowhere specific, just anywhere to get out ofMaryland). I wanted to have my second novel in process of publication already and getting ready to make its debut to the world. I wanted to go to a vocal coach and get my voice back in shape because I wanted to make use of it before it’s too late. I wanted my freelance writing career to become a lot more successful then it has been and getting me to the level of income that allowed me to do the things I wanted to do this year.

So much time I have wasted worrying and stressing about the everyday necessary single mama type of things that there just wasn’t any energy left over for the things that I just want for me. I know that you are probably saying that it’s not too late, the year isn’t over just yet and that is true, but it’s hard for me, at this very moment, to see this year turning out the way I had hoped it would.

I could’ve sworn that this year was going to be my year. I could feel it deep down in the very pit of my soul. Were my gut instincts wrong? Was I thought off in my timing? Is it next year that I have to look forward to?

Well the year isn’t over yet and I do still have a lot of things I could still put in the works, at the very least, to begin the next year off with a good start. I just hope that I can still make the rest of this year that is left count for something.

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

I Never Was the Best at Juggling Too Many Balls

May 9, 2012 jcladyluv

“In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.”
~Sir John Lubbock

Yesterday was the first day of the first class for my Master’s Program in Psychology. I have gone through both frustration and excitement about getting back into school for months now as I went through the enrollment process. It’s something that has always been on my life goal list and that I knew I would not be satisfied had I never completed it.

My excitement faded a little as I read over the syllabus and realized just how hard this was going to be. It’s not as if I expected it to be easy, I mean it’s a Master’s program so the expectations are automatically high. I guess the doubts just hit me as I read over all that had to be tackled in just the first class alone.

I began to wonder ‘why did I sign up for this’ and ‘what exactly did I get myself into’. I started to doubt whether I can really do this successfully. But of course you know the doubts eventually go away and while I am still wondering every other minute if I can handle such an intense program, I am not a quitter and there is no way I am going to turn back now.

The one thing about going back to school that works somewhat in my favor (sometimes it works against me) is that it forces me to have to be more organized in the managing of my time. With this being the Master’s program in which I can’t get anything lower than a B (although I’m striving for all A’s), my need for being better at multi-tasking is even greater now than ever before.

Not only do I have to juggle being a single mother and a struggling writer trying to become more successful with my Freelancing career, but I have to factor in school as well. This makes me have to come up with a time management plan that absolutely has to work because I can’t afford for it to fail.

Have I mentioned I was never good at juggling, hence my inability to master the art of time management in the most recent months. I suppose that I just happen to be one of those people that work better and more effectively when I am under pressure and on some kind of deadline. Well I am definitely going to deal with many deadlines from now until the time I finish my Master’s Degree (especially since I don’t plan to set aside my writing goals). I guess I have to learn to get a lot better at my juggling skills.

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

Scheduling Quality Writing Time

May 7, 2012 jcladyluv

“You don’t find time to write. You make time. It’s my job.”

~Nora Roberts

I was sitting at my desk today thinking about my projects that I am supposed to be working on. I was trying to figure out the best way to be productive in getting them done. I realized that it is actually going to have to come down to me making an actual schedule for me to work off of because at this point that is the only viable way that I think I am actually going to get any of my projects underway and completed.

I started remembering back to when I first began really writing. It started off with poetry when I was in elementary school and for the better part of my high school years. But towards the end of high school is when I first discovered that I was incredibly long-winded (thus not really good at the art of the short story) and decided that I was going to tackle writing novels. I didn’t need a schedule then.

I would just write for hours and hours on end. The words just wouldn’t stop flowing. It seemed like at that point of my life I had all the time in the world to write and there was no need to make a schedule just to find the time to pen (or type in some cases) the different stories I wanted to write.

I suppose I was naïve to think that it would always be like that. Where my drive and passion to write would just magically create this time to still write for hours at a time without ever noticing how fast the time has flown by.

I guess I am apprehensive about having to schedule my writing time because I’m afraid that that would somehow mean that I wouldn’t be seen as the natural writer that I feel I am. But I know that I’ve read many articles where even some of the greatest writers (in which I aspire to reach their level of productivity) have well thought out comprehensive schedules to amass all of that productivity.

It’s odd that I am a person who loves making lists and schedules for everything but when it comes down to my writing I just want it to be as natural as it can be. However, the natural go with the flow method doesn’t seem to be working out as well as I would like. Although if I can become as productive in putting out novel after novel like Joyce Carol Oates, James Patterson, or Sue Grafton, then I suppose having to schedule my writing would have been well worth the change.

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 Superficial World We Live In

May 4, 2012 jcladyluv

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

~Confucius

Can you imagine living without money? I mean without one penny to your name? No roof over your head. No food aside from what people willingly give you or you can find in the garbage. I’m talking about back to the living off the land days where you’re picking berries and boiling dead animals for food (that is if no one gives you any). Better yet can you imagine living this way and being completely happy about it?

Well I came across a story on the internet about a 51 year old man named Daniel Suelo who claims that not only is he broke, but happily, deliberately, and blessedly broke. I clicked on it because just the thought of it sounded completely insane to me but in reading it I can see the validity of his choice.

Having said that, I can not say that I would make a conscious choice to just give up what little money I do have to my name and go roughing it in the wilderness somewhere (if you know me at all, you know I’m not the outdoor type—not even a little bit). However, I understand his position.

The world, especially in recent generations, is so overly consumed with things and what they can possess and acquire. It’s so bad sometimes that you start to wonder just what lengths people would go to, and how many people they would walk over, just to get their hands on something incredibly superficial. People concern themselves so much with the latest ipad (or whatever new piece of technology is out), or how many cars they have, or having the flashiest car, or the biggest home.

But yet we have a huge problem with children in this country and others literally starving to death, schools that don’t have adequate materials to teach our children to the best of their abilities, teenage girls who think it’s cute and fun to have a baby at the ripe age of sixteen or seventeen (sometimes younger than that). It makes me wonder where our priorities are and does this Daniel Suelo have the right idea (or at least the right intentions).

I may not have some prestigious career (at least not until I make the NY Times Bestseller’s List) and I may not be raking in money hand over fist like a lot of people but I guess when I really think about it, my blessings are worth far more than material possessions. I think there is really something to the saying that the more money that we have, the more problems we see because I think it makes people focus even more so on possessing things they don’t even need.

Maybe we do need to get back to the basics and see the blessings in the simple things, the most treasured things that some people would die to have. There are children in other countries who can’t even get an education and we take ours for granted. There are families starving and homeless yet the majority of this country just focuses on how much bigger house they can get for their money, or how fancier their car can be, or eating the most expensive kinds of food, instead of being grateful that they even have a house and a car, and food to eat.

Now I’m not in any way saying that we should just chuck it all and purposely live in the state of poverty because God only knows that I couldn’t go that simple. However, maybe we should take a look at what it is we truly have and are blessed with before complaining about things that we don’t truly need. Maybe the world would be a lot less superficial if we just remembered how good we had it even when we only had the basics. Sometimes less really is more.

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

Only A Few Words Tonight

May 3, 2012 jcladyluv

I don’t have much to say tonight. This week has been a busy one because my daughter’s birthday was Tuesday and although her actual birthday party is not until Saturday I have been trying my best to make this whole week a special one for her.

Needless to say, being a freelance writer who hasn’t quite hit her stride yet (with the income part of freelancing) and is on a never-ending tight budget, it’s kind of hard to come up with exciting things to do for a nine year old all week. You would think that a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese would be enough, and truth be told it probably is, but I always find the need to overcompensate for what I lack (you know money to do much bigger things for her birthday).

Well hopefully I will have more to talk about tomorrow and not be completely monopolized by all things birthday. I can be proud that I did at least show up today, because I almost didn’t.

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

Haters, Haters, Everywhere; Time Being Wasted with No Time to Spare

May 2, 2012May 2, 2012 jcladyluv

“Sometimes, people wanna tear you down. Keep in mind that it is because they want to be like you and you are so far ahead of them that to knock you down would be the only way for them to catch up to you.”

~Author Unknown

It always amazes me how the more successful a person gets, especially when they come from a tough and struggling background, the harder people go out of their way to tear them down. Last night I was on the phone with Ms. L. told and she told me the news about the four-alarm fire that broke out at Tyler Perry Studios inAtlanta,GA.

Then she read the ignorant and disgraceful comments that people were tweeting in response to the news about the fire. A lot of the comments were joking about his building being on a fire and other personal jabs that just weren’t funny and aren’t even worth me restating them.

It just made me remember how hateful and jealous people can be. It doesn’t happen all the time but too often when someone rises from their bad circumstances and makes something out of themselves, reaching a level of success that other people only imagine (unless you’re one of those people who goes beyond imagining and takes action) themselves getting to, people just get so jealous and downright mean.

I suppose that one could take into consideration the saying that the more haters that you have the more that you know you are doing something right. But I just really wish that it wouldn’t have to be that way. I wish that we didn’t have to find a way to look at people’s negative attitudes and spin them around to be something positive for us.

We are supposed to celebrate people’s successes, their rise from the struggles they had to overcome to get to the point they are at. We are supposed to be joyous for others when they succeed and not find ways to keep tearing them down in hopes that they fail. If people are so busy begrudging someone else the destiny that is due to them, it is no mystery why those same people have such a harder time than others achieving the goals and dreams that they strive for.

We are supposed to help lift people up instead of pulling them down just because we might not like where we are at that very moment. I am thankful that no one was hurt in that fire. I am also hopeful that Tyler Perry gets everything repaired fairly quickly and without delay. Not just because I think that he is a brilliantly creative being. Not even because there are so many positive messages that I get from watching his films.

But mostly because the good that he has done with his work, the success that he has achieved in which others are so hatefully envious of, is what allows him to employ 5 thousand or more people who need his success to continue. It is also the same thing that fuels him to help pull others up the ladder in their efforts to become successful.

Successful people help other people become successful too and if the haters looked at it in those terms then maybe they could learn something and maybe they could get to wherever it is they are trying to go. Time hating others success is only time that you spend wasting on the climb up to yours.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

A Writer Must Show Up- Every Day- Even When the Muse Isn’t There

May 1, 2012May 1, 2012 jcladyluv

“You can’t say, I won’t write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then… you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.”

~Dorothy C. Fontana

I didn’t write yesterday but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I just didn’t have anything to say, well nothing that I felt was worthy of being read by you guys. But today I am reminded that I must still write even when I don’t feel like it.

I suppose if I had some deadline to reach (for an actual publisher or editor) I would be more inclined to write even when the mood doesn’t strike. However, the only way I can get to that stage of writing with a deadline for a publisher or agent in mind, or writing an article for an editor on deadline, is if I act as if I have a deadline now. I think I need to start making my own deadlines for certain things that I need to get accomplished and actually sticking to those deadlines as if my life depended on it (mostly because it does).

Even if there is no publisher or agent waiting for my finished work right at this very moment, I am confident (most days) that there will be. I need to make sure that when it counts I won’t find or create an excuse not to put my butt in the chair and write.

It’s different when you write as a hobby because then you really can wait until the mood strikes you to write. You can do other things that you are really motivated to do and when the story hits you a certain way, then you can go write it all down.

On the other hand, a writer, a person who this is not a hobby for but rather something that they are driven to do and are meant to do, something that they can’t live their life without doing, can’t have that luxury. We can’t just wait for that muse (which, let’s face it, doesn’t stick around 24/7) to hit us and we can’t not write until that muse strikes.

This is our livelihood (at least it’s what we would like our livelihood to be) and to be successful at it we can’t just not show up to the desk to write. We have to plant our butts in that chair at the desk or the dining room table, or wherever you write at, and get writing.

Even if it sounds like garbage at first, it could very well be an unpolished jewel, waiting to be polished later on when your muse can begin to make it shine. So for all of you out there who woke up today not feeling like you want to write, write anyway!

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

There Can Be No Victory Without Having Something to Defeat

April 27, 2012 jcladyluv

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”

~Malcolm S. Forbes

This morning I read Ms. L.’s latest blog post and it got me thinking about how we tend to only want to talk about positive things and spare others from the bad (or at least from so much of the bad). I myself sometimes feel as if when I post I tend to zero in on the problems and that the positive spin that I try to put on certain struggles I deal with and doubts and fears that I have are just not positive enough.

In reading Ms. L.’s post it dawned on me that we all love when we hear the feel-good stories but I’m not sure that we realize that the reason we love them so much is because of the struggle that they come from. We like to hear about the things that people overcome and how hard people have to fight to get where it is that they want to be in life and we applaud the victory on the other side of their struggles. It gives us a sense of hope for our own situations.

We can’t always put a positive spin on things that happen in our lives. Sometimes we just have to tell it like it is and hope that others can take something positive away from whatever it is that we are going through. There are always lessons to be learned from the experiences that we go through and sometimes the silver lining just doesn’t show up until after the storm clouds are gone.

However, we still have to fight our way through the storm clouds, and not only that, we have to share our fight. We have to use our struggles to equip others with the necessary tools that they may not even realize they already have so they can weather the storms too. There are silver linings to everything, but Ms. L. is right when she points out that those silver linings don’t really mean much without the clouds that you had to go through to get there.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”