Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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NaNoWriMo Day 5: Oh the Rewards that will follow!

November 5, 2011 jcladyluv

Okay so I had to really think last night of whether I was going to do the early morning wake up sessions for the weekends as well because I hadn’t really thought about it. That was an easy and quick decision. I need to make up for the lost sleep somewhere. It is also no easy to get my words done on a Saturday because I have so many other things to do as well but I just completed my words for today thanks to my local Starbucks. I am going to go get me some Chinese food now as my reward for dinner because I haven’t had it in a long time and I feel that I deserve it. I’m going to go home and watch a movie which I also haven’t done in a while and probably get even more inspired by whatever movie I decide to watch (haven’t made up my mind). Should I decide I want to laugh tonight I also have some stand up comedy on my DVR somewhere in the 93% of recorded items so either way I will make a good night out of it. I hope you all are doing well with your novels and that your characters are still speaking to you. Let me know how you’re doing. Until next time…Don’t forget to reward yourself along the 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

NaNoWriMo Day 4: An In Between Day

November 4, 2011 jcladyluv

I love NaNoWriMo! Okay so I might not like getting up an hour earlier than normal but I suppose the reward of a finished novel at the end of thirty days helps make up for the lost sleep. There are some days where the characters are just speaking to you and you can’t even type or write fast enough to get everything it is that they’re trying to say. And there are the days when you feel like your characters are trying to tell you something but you don’t really know what it is so clearly you can’t convey their message.

Now granted today is not one of those days, it’s also not one where I can’t keep up with my characters train of thought but it is a good day in terms of writing. It was a day where things flowed adequately enough and I feel the story is moving along. I did however, start brainstorming ideas (along with my best friend and fellow NaNo-er) about how this could possibly have the potential to turn into a series but we will see how the story manages to unfold itself. I’m already getting signals pulling me in different directions then when I originally planned my outline.

Writing can be difficult, but it is so well worth every bit of blood (the red pen my best friend, the editor, uses to edit my work with), sweat (no I don’t really sweat over my story either), and tears (yes sometimes I really do cry with my characters), and did I forget agony. A writer takes his or her characters with her, wherever they go and that can be difficult because they tend to pop up and start talking to you out of the blue and then you look crazy because you actually answer them (or is that just me).

The writing process is already a task that is challenging and sometimes frustrating. But to try and write a whole novel in 30 days or at the very least have the framework of that novel put together is incredibly hard. I feel like I can’t afford to have an off day or a day where I fall behind in my word count because there is so much of this story that I feel needs to be told and I don’t want to leave anything out.

It’s a lot of pressure to write a novel, then to write it in 30 days, and then to have it actually be good. But I try not to think about what happens once I finish this thing because then I would have to think about my best friend and the RED ink from her trusty red pen that she likes to mark up people’s manuscripts with. Well I’m gearing up for a weekend full of…you guessed it, more writing. I hope that you all will be writing as well. And I hope that you guys will clue me in on some of your stories. Just a little teaser maybe! Until next time…Don’t stop writing yet!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

NaNoWriMo Day 3: My Character is Really Talking to Me

November 3, 2011 jcladyluv

Okay so this morning Mackenzie is taking this opportunity to take the bull by the horns and seize the moment to really prove herself to her editor. She’s starting to act more like a police detective than just an Investigative reporter. She’s conducting interviews and canvassing neighborhoods and even flirting with the lead homicide detective on the case to gain as much information out of him as she can get. She’s even convinced him to let her look at the autopsy report and crime scene photos, of which she made copies of for her own use.

But Mackenzie is having a hard time keeping her personal issues surrounding this case from affecting her. She got the story because she dated the Ex-congressman and her editor thought it might be easier for her to get the personal details no other reporter could probably get. But now her career rests on a man who she had never wanted to see again. Now she has to relive those moments with him that she was trying to forget for all these years. Working on this story could have damaging psychological effects that she is not prepared to deal with yet.

Okay Mackenzie is having another one of her episodes again so I have to go deal with her for a little while. I might have more to tell you guys tomorrow. Happy writing everyone!

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: Sharing Time

November 2, 2011 jcladyluv

So 2 days in a row I managed to wake up early to write. If I keep this up I won’t have any excuses when NaNoWriMo is over as to why I can’t do this all the time. I must admit that this morning I actually did contemplate hitting the snooze button but I resisted that urge and got up and headed straight for my computer. Mackenzie was ready for me to get back to telling her story. Before I start clueing you in about all of the personal details about Mackenzie I’ll share with you a condensed version of the synopsis.

Mackenzie Brown wants to break into Investigative reporting for the BaltimoreTimes but can’t get her editor to give her the break that she needs to prove what an asset she can be. But when her former college boyfriend, Ex-congressman Andrew Litney is brutally murdered behind the alley of a strip club the opportunity to prove her worth presents itself. But that opportunity comes with immeasurable consequences as it stirs up things from her past that she has tried her best to keep buried. As she digs further and further into the Ex-congressman’s past indiscretions in an effort to discover the person that murdered him, she not only finds everything hitting closer to home then she ever thought it would, but she also uncovers things about herself that might have never been brought to light. Can Mackenzie keep her personal baggage from interfering with the story that could give her journalism career the boost that it desperately needs?

Okay that’s all I can give up right now. Don’t want to tell you everything all at once. I guess you guys are just going to stay tuned in to find out what personal secrets Mackenzie might be keeping hidden, or more importantly, what secrets about her past that are being kept hidden from her. Until next time…Keep writing and don’t stop!

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 1: Early Awakening

November 1, 2011 jcladyluv

So I set out to wake up at 5 this morning and begin writing for the first day of National Novel Writing Month and to accomplish my word count for the day in the little time before I whisked my daughter off to school and headed to the gym for my morning workout. I had suspected that I might not be able to get up that early because I am in no way, shape, or form, a morning person. I typically tend to set three different times for my alarm to go off in the morning because I make plans on hitting the snooze button. In fact I have two other alarm clocks aside from the one with three different times set and those other two are also set at two different times. See I try to get the maximum amount of sleep possible in the morning because I tend to go to bed so late.

However, I am very proud to say that I did in fact not hit the snooze button this morning and I got out of my bed, headed straight for the computer (well there might have been a pit stop to the bathroom first) and pulled out my book with my outline and character sketches and notes and began writing. Not only did I reach the 1,667 words that is estimated for each day of November, but I wrote 1,709 (not really that much more) words. I wrote for about an hour and a half and then when I was finished I charted my time and then I was off to get my daughter ready and off to school. I had a great, awesome, workout at the gym and have had a pretty good day so far (the day is still young).

I think that my writing is sharper and flows better when I work in the morning and it makes my day start off well knowing that I have gotten in a good bit of work done first thing in the morning. It’s quiet in the morning and my mind is very clear (although somewhat sleepy). Now I don’t mean to make it sound like I am not going to try to get more words done today but I want to at least make sure that the amount I definitely need to reach is met. I just hope that I can continue getting up at5amand that I can continue working smoothly to get this novel done, but done well.

Well I guess I better save my words for tomorrow’s morning writing session and the next blog post. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you a little bit about my character Mackenzie Brown and the murder mystery she’s getting herself all wrapped up in. Until tomorrow…What are your characters up to lately?

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

If It’s What You Love To Do, Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish

October 17, 2011 jcladyluv

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

~Steve Jobs

When Steve Jobs died on October 5 he left behind so much more than just his extensive contribution to the technological world. In my opinion, what’s worth far more than his Apple Company is the determination that it took for him to reach his level of success and the words that he expressed in his 2005 commencement speech at StanfordUniversity. I must admit that I had not actually took the time to watch the speech until after his death but there was so much that I got out of those fifteen minutes. One thing he said that stuck with me was to not let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Another memorable thing that I took away from his speech was his last four words; Stay hungry, stay foolish. It seemed to be words that he lived by until his dying day and I found these words to be both intriguing and inspiring. When you stay hungry you never really lose sight of what is at stake for your dreams. You stay focused and steady. You stay driven and determined. You never settle if you have not gotten to where it is you want to be. When you allow yourself to stay foolish you give yourself permission to have the courage to do the things that everybody else might think of as stupid or crazy. Those that remain foolish have the ability to ignore the logic that might be telling them that something will be too difficult or impossible to make happen.

In the last few weeks I have been continually told, in so many words, that what I want for my life is not going to happen and that I am wasting my time with it. I should just go make a career out of working behind a desk and be content with that because it’s a good living. They say writing is not practical, writing will never make me rich or even provide enough money to live off, writing is a great hobby but it’s not realistically possible to make it, especially in the current economy. Well I say to hell with anyone who tells me that doing what I love to do, what I was born to do, is a waste of my time. It’s who I am and it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.

It’s not as if I just woke up a year or two ago and said hey, I think I want to be a writer now. I have known since I was six years old that this was what my purpose in life was and I have never, in 25 years, wavered from that belief. Honestly, at this point I’ve put in so much time and sacrificed so much in the effort of making this work that I can’t go back now. Sure I’m not where I would like to be within my career at this point, nor where I thought I would be, but I know it’s coming because I know it’s meant for me.

So many times I hear about or see people who have spent their lives doing something that is practical and might have garnered them success but it wasn’t what they wanted for themselves. It wasn’t the way that they wanted to achieve their success and they weren’t very happy. They spent their lives living up to others’ standards and other people’s ideas of normal and practical. They lived a life, but it wasn’t theirs.

I’ve already wasted too much of my limited time on this earth living the way someone else thought I should, doing what was practical all the while longing to follow my heart. I am not going to leave this world feeling like I didn’t at least try to live the life I was meant to live. As Steve Jobs also said in his brilliant speech, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose…” What good is living if I am not going to go for it all, come hell or high water? I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to really throw caution to the wind and just jump feet first without worrying what will go wrong. I think that I’m going to start finding out. I thank you Steve Jobs for being brave enough to Stay hungry and Stay foolish. Until next time…Imagine all of what you can do if you were just a little more foolish and a lot less logical.

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

Visualize That You Are Already There

October 14, 2011October 14, 2011 jcladyluv

“See things as you would have them be instead of as they are.”

~Robert Collier

There are people who say that you become what you believe. So it’s simple, right? If you visualize something you want in your life, then you will eventually achieve it. However, it is difficult for a lot of people to believe in things that have yet to be seen; to believe that what you visualize could actually be tangible.

We are told to step out on faith. We believe that through God all things are possible and we stay true to that (for the most part), but we can’t see God either. So just as we blindly trust in God to always be there for us and guide us in the right direction why are we not so trusting in our own instincts and our own belief in ourselves? Why is it that we can’t trust that what we envision for our lives is not what we can actually have?

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jim Carey said that before he made it big he would drive around and he would visualize what he wanted for his life and he would envision that he actually had those things but that they were just temporarily out of his reach at that moment. That’s an ingenious way to look at things because in reality, nothing that any of us wants for ourselves is impossible. What takes the possibility out of succeeding in our goals is the lack of determination and persistence at going after them because as Jim Carey also noted in his interview, visualizing does nothing if there is no work done to obtain that vision.

When you think about what you want your level of success to be and what you can achieve, you should not set those standards according to what others may be thinking your level should be. Your calling in life has nothing to do with anyone else but what you see yourself doing and what you see yourself achieving. Visualizing your goals and not just the possibilities but the realities can allow you to see that they are right within your grasp, if only you would just reach out your hands and grab a hold of them.

So the next time you start hearing yourself say you wish you could just achieve this or that and you find yourself feeling as if there are nothing but what ifs hanging over your head, just stop and visualize that you are already wherever it is that you want to be and that you already have the things that you wish to have. It’s a lot better then thinking that it will never happen. Until next time…Grab onto the image of success that’s right in front of you instead of the possibility of failure!

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

Should I Really be Content?

October 8, 2011 jcladyluv

“If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest.”

~Jerome K.

I am not a perfect person. I am a good writer, but by far, I am not the best that there is. I am driven and overly ambitious but I do, a lot of the time, tend to let my fear get in my own way. I will not do everything right all of the time and I am sure to get many more things wrong in this life before I leave it. It is a waste of time to pretend that I am anything close to what people might wish I could be.

I read online somewhere the other day something that said ‘until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have’. The only problem that I have with that saying is that I don’t think that anyone should ever really be content with what they have if their goals in life far exceed where they are right now. I have made peace with me and with all that I am, and more importantly with all that I am not and it took me a very long time to get to that point where I could be at peace with myself.

However, I can not say that I am content with what I have. Not out of some sense of being greedy and wanting more. And not because I don’t appreciate the things that I do have right now at this very moment, but because I know that there is so much more that I can be doing and goals that I am striving to get accomplished, and I can’t say I’m content yet. I know I could be doing better.

I think a state of contentment happens when a person gets to that point in their life where they can check off the majority of the things they set out to achieve, when they are where they need to be in life, and they don’t necessarily have to be rich, but rather self reliant and independent, and more importantly, stable. I am grateful, and very aware of the good things that I have had happen in my life, and of the potential that I have to do more with my life, but I do want to do more. I am not content with being ordinary, but rather, I strive to be extraordinary.

I think that sometimes people get complacent and they settle for what they have managed to achieve. Maybe they get in this rut where they honestly feel that they can’t accomplish the rest of their goals that they had wanted to achieve. That is not being content. That is settling for what you have managed to do so far. I think that it is okay to be at peace with the person you are and still not feel as if you are content. Once you reach the point of contentment, what else is there to strive for? Then what will our purpose be? I am who I am and I am okay with that, but I don’t think I will ever think that I am done doing what I was put on this earth to do. Until next time…If you think there is more in your life that needs to be done, are you really content?

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

Let Me Not Wallow Anymore

October 5, 2011 jcladyluv

“There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning.”

~E.J. Klemme

I was thinking the other night, yet again, about how bad things are and how I can almost see that light at the end of the tunnel but I’m getting frustrated because I feel as if that light should be much closer by now. I was thinking of how I just wish things, for once, could be going the way that I need for them to go. What I was doing was wallowing, and it wasn’t the first time. I was focusing so much on what isn’t going right that I wasn’t thinking about the things that are going right.

My best friend, Ms. L., hates it when I get so far down in the dumps that I can’t see any possible chance of something positive happening. She doesn’t like to hear me speak of all of the things that I think I can’t do because of this, that, or the other. She tells me that she doesn’t want to hear it and that she’s there for me but she can’t be around the negativity. To tell you the truth she actually has had the nerve to hang up on me once and I was mad. Those times when she would shut me down when I’m just simply trying to express what I’m feeling at the moment I could not understand how she couldn’t just be there for me and listen. But more and more I realize that she was being a friend, a really good friend.

Not only was she not going to let me tear myself down and make light of my goals or my potential, but she also wasn’t going to let me bring her down into my pit of negativity. I can appreciate that now because I have a person that is in my orbit that constantly tries to find one way or another to bring me down to her level of negativity and tries even harder to keep me feeling that way. I find myself constantly having to cut her off in the midst of her trying to make me commiserate in her own misery and negative feelings just so I can maintain my optimism that I find myself having to work at maintaining on a daily basis.

Sometimes I get stuck feeling a certain way, I get in a funk and too many times I allow myself to stay in that funk for far too long but it is having a friend like Ms. L. that can give me a good shaking (not physically of course) to make me see that wallowing is not going to change anything, but rather allow things to continue on being the same. Changing one’s circumstances can only happen once you stop questioning why me, and why did this or that happen, and actually do something about the situation that you don’t want to be in anymore. It’s good to have a friend that will risk hurting your feelings and upsetting you in order to save you from yourself. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Until next time…Stop wallowing in the things you can’t change and get out there and make the changes that you have the power to make!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”