Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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

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

Writers Do More Than Just Write

April 23, 2012 jcladyluv

I think back to the days when I actually thought that being a writer only entailed writing. But we writers, we do way more than just write. I am slowly figuring out that among the many things on the list of our duties is being a public speaker. It is something that most, if not all, writers must adapt to. It is one thing that I struggle with the most.

Just the thought of being in front of people and talking about myself or my work makes me nervous and begin to feel my anxiety level rise. It’s actually funny because most people that know me would say that it is hilarious to think of me not being able to talk in front of people because I seem to be able to hold a conversation so well.

However, the reality is that being as though writing is my destiny and my purpose and I know that I have to do whatever it takes to be successful at it, I have to learn to get over my consistent state of stage fright. It’s only going to hold me back, and it’s only going to limit me from the possibilities that lie ahead of me. My opportunities reside in the extra steps that I take to get where I need to be.

It is amusing to me when someone dismisses writing as a hobby and not really being a job. When I tell people I am a writer they usually say something to the effect of, ‘oh so you don’t really have a job’. My response is (after rolling my eyes at the audacity that they would have to say that) is ‘writing is a job, why don’t you try it and tell me it isn’t work.’ What I don’t think people get is that writing is hard work.

Writers are many things. Our lists of duties extend far beyond the realm of putting words on paper. We are our own promoters and marketers, we are our own accountants (unless you’re making enough to afford one), we are editors, we are researchers, we are public speakers, we are activists, we are musicians, we are directors, we are motivators, and we are entrepreneurs. A Writer certainly does way more than just write.

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

Where Writing Leaves Off, Music Picks Up

April 20, 2012 jcladyluv

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.”
~Victor Hugo

I just finished reading Ms. L.’s blog post from last night. I swear sometimes when she writes a post it’s almost like she tuned into something that I was already thinking about and wanted to say but somehow couldn’t actually find the words to say it. And then I usually read her post and it helps me put what I wanted to say into perspective.

She talked about the musician side of her and while I must say I don’t have the songwriting capability that she has, I too, have had dreams of being on the stage singing with the whole shebang, lights, cameras, band, and background singers. Now it’s usually hard for me to toot my own horn most of the time but there are two things that I have no problem acknowledging that I am good at, my writing (of course) and my singing.

I can still sing, or at least carry a more decent tune than most, but there was once a time when I really (really) used to be able to sing. I had a really good range and I could hold a note for a really long time. I might have had a little too much vibrato at times but it could’ve been managed.

I miss the times when I used to just pull out my stacks of CDs and just hold my own personal concert in my house. Sometimes there would even be an occasional group of my friends (of course they could sing too) and we would do group songs, duets, and each would take turns being the soloist. Those were really fun times.

Singing was my release, almost as much as writing was. In fact when I wasn’t writing you would more than likely find me singing. Even when my daughter was a baby I would sing to my daughter and it would literally lull her right to sleep. I would still get together with that group of friends and we would sing to entertain her and she loved it.

I never really thought about the possibility of writing songs until recently, partly because I feel my voice wasn’t what it once was and I realize that I might never get to contribute to the music industry the way I had once intended to, on stage. I’ve even been told all throughout my time of writing poetry that I had some poems that have the potential of making really good songs. The problem with that would be that, unlike Ms. L., I can not write or read music, so I’m always left with this melody of something in my head that I can’t for the life of me (because I’m getting old and my memory isn’t what it once was) remember later.

Sometimes I do feel like I am really missing out on something by not getting some piano lessons and perhaps beginning to actually write my own songs to sing. But I suppose that if it’s meant to be for me to create music, because it is ingrained inside of me, then it will be present within my journey.

I do, however, miss the days of gathering up my stacks of CDs and cranking my stereo up, and singing for hours on end. Music has a way of healing my spirit in ways that sometimes (very rarely) writing can’t. When I can’t find the words to convey what I am feeling, I can always find the song. It’s as if it picks up where writing leaves off and then allows my writing to weave its way back in.

“Where words fail, music speaks.”

~Hans Christian Andersen

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

Accidentally but on Purpose

April 19, 2012 jcladyluv

“There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I always hear the phrase, accidents happen, and for the longest time I believed it to be true. Things, little coincidences, just happen sometimes. You run into someone at the store that you haven’t seen in a long time seems like it would be a coincidence. You meeting someone that you may have more than a few things in common with is just a happy coincidence. You having some sort of accident happen to you or a family member, perhaps a car accident, is just a terrible accident that should’ve never happened, right? Wrong.

I used to believe that but somewhere along this journey of my life I have come to know that there is no such thing as coincidences and accidents. If you were to believe that things in your life happen by accident, or coincidence, then that is to say that you don’t believe that there is a plan that God has already laid out for you before you were even born into this world.

I meet different people all of the time but they don’t all stick, they don’t all get invited into my inner circle. But the ones that do, the ones that have been there no matter what, I know that I did not meet them by accident and there was no coincidence in those meetings. They were placed before me, by God, because he knew that I needed them in my life, and perhaps that they needed me too.

I have come to realize over the years that there is a reason for everything that happens in your life, and that they don’t just accidentally happen. I have been in several car accidents in my life, two in which I could have died in. I know that technically they are deemed car accidents but I in many ways see them as signs. Maybe they were to wake me up to the fact that, although for a large part of my life I thought I was just here by mistake (mostly because my mother told me that I was one) and that I had no good to share with the rest of the world, I am in fact here for a reason.

My best friend, Ms. L. and I met coincidentally, or so I always thought. We were in college and one night I went into the T.V. lounge and she was sitting there watching T.V. We struck up a conversation and began to hang out, initially meeting in the lounge almost every night, and then trading time in each other’s dorm rooms.

Two girls, from two different types of backgrounds, with two totally different levels of self esteem and confidence; one who was (or at least appeared to be) very sure of herself, and one who was still lost trying to figure out what version of herself was the right one to let the rest of the world see (that would be me).

We couldn’t have been more different, but oddly enough we couldn’t have been more alike either. Looking back now, on what I thought was a coincidence I see that we were always supposed to meet. I can’t even imagine my life without her in it and there are so many benefits of having her as my best friend and knowing she will always be in my corner no matter what, and I in hers.

I don’t believe that I met her by accident, nor any of the other people who I deem to be significant in my life. Much like Ms. L., they all drive me, to be better, to be more consistent. They make me want to be a better friend, a better person, and force me to see in myself what they see in me.

The thing is that you never know what the reason is for any one particular circumstance that you are going through. And you won’t know until you have seen your way through those circumstances. There is a reason, or rather, a purpose for every turning point (good or bad) in your life. And nothing ever happens by accident.

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 Know It Doesn’t Seem Like I Was Productive Today…

April 18, 2012 jcladyluv

Every day is not going to be the most productive day like I usually imagine it to be when I get out of bed in the morning. I imagine that after I take my daughter to school, go do my workout at the gym, come home to shower and get dressed that I would be ready to load myself with a cup (or two) of coffee and get straight to work. However, it does not always work out that way.

A part of me becoming more focused on my goals and turning my dreams into reality is to make sure that I am more productive everyday. Sometimes that calls for me to begin to realize that productivity does not just lie in the work that’s being done in a manner that can be always be seen.

Even if at the end of a day I don’t have a thousand words on my novel written, or I don’t write two or three query letters to be sent out, or I haven’t started that outline for the next novel that I was supposed to start the other day, or I don’t have the most prolific words for my blog post, it doesn’t mean that work is not being done.

A lot of times a writer’s work begins in their minds first. An idea formulates and is planned out in extensive detail within the walls of your mind and it takes life all before you even take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Research is also a big part of a writer’s world because that aspect of any project is extremely important and can not be avoided.

So on days like today, when I start to begin beating myself up for not having a finished query letter to send off, or for not being words closer to completing my novel, I have to remind myself that it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t productive. I do an enormous amount of my work in my head, and another large part is done in my research efforts. I can’t allow myself to feel like I’m not getting things done just because I don’t have a finished product. Some days my mind just needs to do the work within its walls and that’s okay.

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

Structuring Ourselves In Order to Sustain His Blessings

April 17, 2012 jcladyluv

“Your real strength, your guts, your tenacity, your staying power, your discipline, is in the things God did for you when nobody was looking.”

~Bishop T.D. Jakes

I realized last night that my post yesterday was a little unfinished. I don’t think that the message that I was trying to convey was finished yet. I was reading Ms. L’s blog post this morning and realized that there was more I needed to say. She spoke of having doubts in her mission and her purpose with what she is trying to do with her company and her new magazine, PIEhole, and in reading her post I thought all of these doubts sounded all too familiar for me.

I hadn’t realized that she was experiencing this much doubt. I always see her as so well put together and it just always seems that she is fearless and ready to take on the world. I started thinking back to the Bishop T.D. Jakes sermon that I listened to yesterday and the particular part that I wanted to convey to Ms. L. in her time of doubt, and what I have to get through to my own mind as well, is that greatness takes time.

“The best miracles in your life take time; can not be driven by hunger, or need, or necessity. Sometimes you have to get yourself structured and in order so that you are ready to receive the magnitude of what God has for you. Just because you have a driving need does not mean that you can disperse with the order and the time and the structure that is necessary to hold the weight of what God is going to do. Some people are so busy trying to get what God has that they don’t provide the structure that is necessary to sustain what they have been given.”

This quote struck me when I heard it in his sermon. It hit me like a ton of bricks because I thought about the fact that I have not necessarily built up a stable structure. I have not yet gotten the order that I need to have to sustain the kind of structure that I need. It makes sense that God would want to hold onto the overflow of blessings that he has stored up for me until he sees that I have built up a stable enough structure to hold the weight of those blessings.

I am still working on the order and my structure and perhaps I should stop rushing God along to give me what he knows that I am not ready to sustain. “Until you can be thankful for something that is not enough, then what you have can not be multiplied into what is more than enough.” Perhaps my time would be better spent preparing my structure and being thankful for the things that he has already blessed me with and seen me through instead of just waiting for him to do what he has in his plans to do for me.

So that’s what I’m going to continue to strive for and work on. I am going to be building up my structure and getting my ‘house’ in order and enjoy and be thankful for what God has already blessed me with on an everyday basis. He has blessed me with so many things in my life thus far, among them a purpose, knowledge of how to go after that purpose, and the ability to carry out that purpose. I know that once he feels I am ready for the overflow, my cup will runneth over.

*(And Ms. L., your cup is already nearing the edge.)*

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

Somewhere Hidden In the Scraps

April 16, 2012 jcladyluv

“Miracles always begin with recognition of what you have; if you don’t recognize what you have, you can never multiply what you have not recognized.”

~Bishop T.D. Jakes

There are some writers that will always tell other aspiring writers that they are never supposed to throw anything away. That whatever you create should be held onto. There are those scraps of paper that you set to the side whenever your idea doesn’t pan out the way you thought it would.

There’s that opening scene that you decided that you weren’t crazy about once you had completed it. Even the novel that you, for some unknown reason, stopped working on halfway through it and have just set to the side never to be seen again for years, possibly decades. I firmly believe in never throwing things away but not just for the sake of holding onto things and not being able to let go but because you never know what treasures lie in those scraps of paper that you are thinking about throwing away.

Those scraps of paper may not have been right for what you initially intended it for but they might be perfect for some other project down the line. That scene may not have fit that particular story but could find a home in the next one. That unfinished novel that is still sitting and collecting dust may just be waiting for the right time for you to be ready to finish it and it could be the next great novel the world is waiting to read.

Last week I wrote a post that mentioned some segments from a sermon given by Bishop T.D. Jakes that was featured on a particular episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter. I had only captured certain pieces of that sermon on the show but this morning I went back and listened to it in its entirety and got so much more out of it then I did before. His specific message was on saving the scraps (our past burdens) and it was centered around a passage from the bible taken from Mark6:42-52.

In his sermon he said that “The miracle is not in what you lost, the miracle is not in what you have consumed previously, your best days are not your yesterdays, your miracles are in what you have left. If you discard it, ignore it, don’t use it, don’t value it, don’t learn from it, don’t understand it, you will lose the battle before you because you did not learn from the battle behind you. – That which remains is more valuable than that which was lost.”

He talked about us taking our scraps and using them to enable us to power through and forge ahead. To use them as our learning tools that eventually become our blessings. “Your power is not in where you are, your power is in where you’ve been” and if you don’t recognize and hold onto the place that you were once at you can not truly appreciate the place where you are now.

Bishop T.D. Jakes closed his sermon by saying to those who have been broken, that the problem is that you have not considered the scraps that God has given you. If you had considered the scraps then you would already know and trust that you are safe. That it is not what you go through, but rather how you perceive what you go through.

I am very aware of the fact that I need to learn how to appreciate the scraps of my life instead of continuing to try and bury them. True gratitude comes in the appreciation of the fact that those scraps have been the reason for more than my fair share of blessings. Like it or not those scraps are what makes me who I am. They’re what make you who you are too.

When you look back at the things that you have been through and on the lows that you have been in, you have to know that God would not have put you through those things if he did not have a plan to bring you to higher ground. Your blessings are hidden in what you’ve already experienced and been through, in the lessons that life has already been teaching you. Your blessings are hidden in the scraps of it all.

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 Chance Meeting With a Message for Me About Rejection

April 13, 2012 jcladyluv

“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.”

~Bo Bennett

I met someone at the Starbucks today as I sat down to the blank page of my computer screen wondering what I was going to write this post about today. She is a fellow author and I saw her come in with her box of books of her debut novel, Murder by Ice. She walked right up to the cashier at the counter and after ordering her coffee asked if she could sell her books here. I thought to myself ‘she’s not even afraid that they’ll say no, why aren’t I like that.’ She sat at the table where I was sitting as she waited for the cashier to talk to the manager and get a response back to her and we began talking.

I asked her how she gets up the nerve to do that. I promptly began to explain how hard it was for me to just get out and talk to people to get them to buy my book as I handed her the postcard for my novel, The Diary: Succession of Lies. I know funny right. I’m talking about how hard it is for me to promote myself and my book as I am whipping out the postcard for my book (I didn’t even realize what I was doing while I was doing it). She asked where my book was but it just so happened that I left the box of books at home and she immediately got on me. I explained that sometimes I just don’t feel like anyone’s going to buy it so I just don’t bring it with me.

We talked for over an hour about many different things and she asked me why I found it so easy to show my card about my book to her but can’t go out and do the same with other people. I told her that it was easy to do that with people who I knew were writers as well. Writers know the painstaking efforts we each go through, not just to write the book but to get it edited and published and selling. I told her that with other writers I feel less of a chance of getting rejected.

She said to me in essence that rejection comes with the territory of being a writer (which I am all too familiar with) but also that just because someone doesn’t buy my book right then and there that it is not necessarily rejection. Sometimes just their knowing about your book and the story it tells may make them think about it and go buy it later. However, if I never tell anyone then no one ever goes back to buy it later.

Rejection is just so scary and it, at times, makes you feel like you are not good enough. It can make you doubt yourself. I mean obviously I know that everyone is not going to always like what I write or publish it but it still stings a little (a lot actually). Well as it turns out this lady that I ran into, I already knew her. There we were talking like strangers and then realizing that I used to hang out with her daughter and that I already knew her. It was wonderful to run into her because I hadn’t seen her in so long (since I was still a teenager).

We both realized that there was a reason for both of us coming to this particular Starbucks on this particular day because I started not to go there today but in many ways something was drawing me there. Now I know that it was to run into this wonderfully, courageous, woman, who at the age of 50 (hope she wouldn’t mind me saying her age) has the nerve and fearlessness of getting out there and promoting herself and her book (her baby as she called it) and for me to be inspired by her actions.

In just the short time that I talked to her today she reminded me that rejection is nothing to be afraid of and that that fear could even make me better and work harder to accomplish what I want (and need) to get done. She said to me that we writers are pioneers of inspiration and reminded me that our stories and experiences are meant to be shared with others.

Even if everyone doesn’t get something out of your shared experiences, there’s always that one person that will. That one person will be inspired, or motivated, and take your words as lessons and advice for the steps that they take moving forward. You will be their chance meeting with a message that they never knew they were going to receive.

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

Cutting the Ties of Negativity That Keep Me Bound

April 12, 2012 jcladyluv

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

~Lucille Ball

It is important when being a writer, in business for yourself, that you have adequate support around you. People reassuring you that you will be successful and that actually believe the encouragement that they are giving you. People that you can bounce ideas off of and they get how your mind works and don’t automatically assume that you are crazy. People that don’t tear you down every chance that they get.

I think that I have built up a good circle of people who believe in my vision and what my purpose is. It may be a very small circle but it is there. The problem that I continue to come up against is the people, or person in particular, who continues to tear me down with every open shot they get.

Now I know that I am supposed to cut any negative form of energy that enters into my circle and threatens my belief in myself but family is a little harder to get rid of. Every time I get to a place where I feel confident in what I am doing and I begin to stop doubting myself (at least not on an everyday basis) this person says such negative, nasty, unsupportive things. Sometimes they just say things that are downright hateful.

I asked someone once how you are supposed to extract that negative energy from your life and your circle when they are family and you have to deal with them on a regular basis. This person told me that just because that person is your family doesn’t mean that they necessarily deserve to be treated the way people normally would treat their family. He said that if they are not living up to the title and are not giving me that emotional support that family is supposed to give one another then they are family in title only but not in their actions.

I never thought of it that way and even though I try to keep this in mind, every time I have to deal with this person (which is often because my daughter is very close to them) the negativity is just there and sometimes it seeps in my subconscious whether I want it to or not. Last night the negativity seeped in for a little while but for a writer there is typically a battle to keep out the voices of doubt, whether it is your voice or the voice of others.

I didn’t necessarily win the time and productivity battle today but every day won’t be perfect and you have to just take the good with the bad. Tomorrow will be a better day, one where I will avoid all said persons projecting negativity my way.

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

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

April 11, 2012 jcladyluv

I am not full of thought provoking and inspirational quotes and phrases to say today but I really wanted to make sure that I posted. I am starting to feel my drive kick back into gear, on some days I would even say high gear.

I am having more and more productive moments and planning out several projects that I want to work on. I am finally sending out query letters (although they are not perfect) and I am even beginning to work on my novel again, little by little (every little bit counts).

I am happy to be gaining momentum on the dreams I have been continuously chasing since I was younger. I have been trying to keep a positive frame of mind as well as keeping my eyes on the goals that I have set for myself.

I think if I take my eyes off of those goals I’ll start to slip back into the land of un-productivity once again. So far this week I am winning the battle of time and I plan to keep it that way.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”