Tag: writing career

Even If It’s Not Broken, It May Still Need to Be Fixed

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What has God been able to teach you lately? That question was one that my pastor posed to us yesterday and it was a very thought provoking one. To put it in context, he was talking to us basically about getting out of the comfort zone of the things that we know and start walking in the path of the things that we don’t know. I love how the things that I had already been processing in my own mind for myself, when I hear them from another wiser and more experienced person it just makes that much more sense.

I am one of those old fashioned people who can’t really stand the drastic changes in technology and the way that we communicate today. I am much more “comfortable” doing things the way that I know how to do them and the old adage of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is my personal favorite mantra. My pastor preached to us yesterday about learning how to evolve with things and being willing to gain new knowledge so that it could help us take the skills that God has blessed us with, that we have always had, and nurture them and grow them into something even better and bigger with the power to do more good within this world.

When I heard those words I thought about all of the limitations that I have been placing on myself and my dreams just from the shear inability to allow my mind to expand and let myself learn new methods of doing things that just might actually allow for growth and exposure to something better. It’s so odd for me because I consider myself such a student of life and a person who just loves learning overall but when it comes to doing things in a way that’s unsure I just stop there.

I suppose my writing career could be in a far different (and better) place right now if I had been more adaptable to change a long time ago. New can be scary for me, especially if I had gotten so used to doing things in a way that seemed to be working so well but the thing is sometimes you do things the same for so long that you can’t even see when they stop working. You’re too blinded by the familiar and you keep walking in what you know because it feels right to you.

When you finally realize how much you haven’t grown it can be a jolt to the system and one that can either cause you to crumble or to kick it into high gear and get moving in the right direction. I guess you could say I did some crumbling first. I suppose I just have to keep reminding myself of how good change can be when I start to regress and back away from something new. The fact of the matter is that what God wants me to do with the gifts he’s given me, what he wants me to pour into this world is far more important than my wanting to remain ‘comfortable’. I have work to do and I don’t get to complain about being uncomfortable!

Until next time… #BeUncomfortable #BeInFaith

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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Plant Seeds, Water Dreams, and Persist Until Success Blooms

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planting the Seeds of Dreams 2I’ve been thinking a lot about the time limits we impose upon ourselves when it comes to getting the things we want done. For a planner like me who had her life plans mapped out from the time I was ten years old it is extremely disheartening when things get thrown so far off course that you don’t even recognize the road you’re on anymore. A childhood friend of mine read my blog post the other day about going back to the beginning of a dream and provided some much needed words of encouragement that I needed to hear. He reminded me that just because I have not yet accomplished the things that I thought I would have by now that it doesn’t mean that I won’t. He reminded me that a lot of times the success comes later on in life and he let me know that he still believed in me as he always had since the 8th grade poem that a group of us wrote together.

True enough, my plans for making an established career as a writer have not worked out quite the way that I envisioned but I’m not completely sure that I would change things. I can say that now because hindsight is twenty-twenty and looking back at some of the things that certain detours in my plan have brought into my life (one main blessing being my daughter) I can honestly say that I wouldn’t trade the experiences that I’ve had or the obstacles that I have had to work through for anything. I think that when I finally do reach the position in my writing career that I am striving for that those same obstacles and experiences will provide a great foundation for the lasting success that I saw for myself from the very beginning.

There are no time limits on when a person can achieve the success that they are looking for in life. We would like to get to the level of success we desire in a hurry and sometimes that can end up being to our detriment because far too often people aren’t really truly ready for the success they are seeking. I think that we’re often tested to gauge whether or not we’re even serious about what it is that we say we want. Will we throw our dreams away at the first sign of a major hurdle? Will we get halfway down the path to our goals and then get so impatient with how long it’s taking that we turn and double back before we’ve even reached the end of the road? Just how important could our dreams be if we run away from them at the first sign of resistance?

I think things happen for a reason, be it good or bad, and we have to be sure that the journey we are on has our full commitment and that our plans of action matches our level of desire. We can’t just quit on the dreams we have because it gets a little harder than we thought it would be to achieve them. They say that the hardest battles come with the sweetest victories so just imagine how sweet the success will be if you don’t give up on the goal just because the storm became too hard to bear. You’ve already planted the seed so just make sure you keep watering the dream!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

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Nothing Like a Good Kick When You’re Down to Get You Going Again

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I have always known I wanted to be a writer (well obviously not as a baby but from the age of 6 so fairly young) and once I knew that writing was my dream I slowly began guiding myself towards that.  Now at 6 I wasn’t crafting novels or anything (although that is not unheard of today) but I began reading all kinds of different stories and discovering what types of stories interested me.  By the time I turned 10 I began taking the bad experiences that were going on at home and using those emotions that I felt to begin crafting poetry.

I started to envision all of the roads and paths that writing was going to take me down.  I admit I was always a bit of a dreamer and that my dreams of where I was going to go within my writing career were probably a bit exaggerated but I could have sworn that I was going to be somewhere so different by the time I reached my thirties and I always imagined the best of circumstances.

Here I am now, in my early thirties, and I am not even in the vicinity of where I thought I would be at this point in my life.  I feel as if life keeps kicking me when I’m already down and while I know that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, I don’t feel like I am getting any stronger with every struggle that comes my way.  I sit and wonder at times where did things get off track and wonder if I could only go back to that point where the course changed then maybe I could finally get to the point that I want to be at.

The problem with that is that going back and trying to reroute the course changes a lot of the good things that have happened, one of them being my daughter, and I can’t say that I would trade a lot of the experiences that I have had for anything else.  If I dwell on what could’ve been in some dreamed about future from when I was too young to know any better then I will begin to take for granted all of the good things that I do have.  Not only that but I will take for granted all of the lessons that my mistakes have taught me.

I suppose there’s a reason for everything that happens.  Even when you veer off the path that you were meant to travel on, the detours always provide something that you wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.  It’s hard when you feel like you are continually being kicked when you are already down.  However, the other side of that coin is that sometimes it takes a good kick to get you headed back in the right direction again.  It’s never too late to change the circumstances that are keeping you down as long as you’re willing to keep getting right back up for the next round.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Maybe Things Would Have Been Better If…

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Often times I wonder (too often to actually count) if I made the right decision by choosing not to go back into the traditional work force as most single parents do and make that steady and stable income every other week.  I mean let’s face it, it’s not as if I have hit it big or anything and if I want to get real honest I am not doing as well in my writing career as I thought I would be by now, or that I know I should be doing.  

I think of all the things I want to buy for my daughter and the activities that I would like to put her in to enhance her creative nature that I just can’t afford right now and I wonder what the hell am I doing and I constantly wonder am I completely screwing her life up by not just accepting the fact that this just isn’t working and maybe it’s just not for me.  I mean it’s not like it wouldn’t be nice to have a steady and predictable stream of income coming in that I know I can count on.  

But then yesterday morning as I was getting my daughter ready for daycare (it acts as a camp during the summer) she said ‘thank you mommy’.  I asked her what she was thanking me for and she replied ‘for taking such good care of me’.  She said that I am always there when she needs me.  She almost brought me to tears and I was so touched.  She made me feel like the choice not to go back to a traditional job and stay home with her, all while still pursuing my dreams of making what I love to do my career, was totally worth it.  Yesterday, just her appreciation of me, let me know that it was the right decision, for me anyway.  

It is all the more motivation to let me know that I have to have less moments of procrastination and more moments of productivity because I have to make this work, I have to do what I know in my heart I was meant to do.  Not just because I love doing it and it is my passion, but because being able to write and become more successful at it makes moments like yesterday with my daughter even more possible.  

It would make it more of a certainty that I will continue to always be here when she needs me and that I will always take very good care of her.  More importantly it will show her that you can go after your dreams and make it work even though everyone else around you may be telling you that you’re crazy for ever thinking this could work and to be more realistic.  I want her to not be afraid to go after her dreams and to not have to think that going after her dreams is going to do more harm then good.  

So in an effort to procrastinate less and produce more, I am going to make it a point to accomplish at least three things every week (3 is a nice workable number) to get me further along in my writing career.  Whether it is actually working on my novel (which is still not finished) or just getting those query letters that I keep trying to make perfect sent out so someone can actually see them.  Even if it is just gathering research for a particular project, that is still working towards the end goal of finishing that project.  I think that is a goal that I can work with and actually stick to.  

Until I do make things happen the way that I want them to, I have to work on tuning that voice in the back of my mind that questions if things would’ve been better if I had made another choice.  Fact of the matter is that I will never know the answer to that because I chose to do me and not what someone else might have thought I should do.  I’m certainly not going to become the success that I want to be by doing what everyone else thinks I should.       

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

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Proceed Without Caution

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“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

~Diane Ackerman 

So I am on a mission this week to re-ignite my fire and drive to become more productive in my writing career and I came across this article by Sage Cohen on ways to harness your fear and make that fear fuel your writing.  There was a specific tip about focusing on the process instead of the results and it struck a chord with me.  I am always focused on the end result of any and everything.  I have always been a planner (at least in my adult post-motherhood days) I suppose I am overly cautious that way.  I have this need to know how things are going to turn out primarily because I just can’t stand the not knowing. 

The reality of any situation and of life really, is that there is absolutely no way of knowing how anything is going to turn out.  There’s no predetermined outcome for things (well there is but only God knows what they are), it’s just a game of wait and see.  I don’t exactly know when I became so obsessed with being cautious about everything because I never used to be that way, at least not with my writing.  My writing was always the one thing where I just wrote and whatever came of it when I was done was what became of it.  I wrote and believed that whatever I wanted to make happen with it would become a reality as long as I put in the work.  

Over the years it seemed like I put in more and more work with my writing and nothing grand (the way I dreamt it up in my mind) was happening and I just started to doubt a little bit more and believed that caution was the way to go.  The problem with that is that caution and creativity don’t really mix well together.  I somehow forgot how to just enjoy the process and deal with the results of that process when they needed to be dealt with.  Now of course results do indeed matter, but not at the expense of the sheer joy of working your way through the process.  

Writing is an extremely rewarding, healing, and invigorating process.  However, by constantly agonizing over what the results are going to be when I am done, I have somehow stopped enjoying the actual process of it.  Maybe that means I need to take a step back and just fall in love with the process again, minus all of the cautionary measures.  Old habits are hard to break but I am certainly going to try to get back to that place where I didn’t worry so much about what was on the other side of the bridge I was crossing, just so long as I made it there.  

Caution can be good sometimes on your way to any destination in life but too much apprehension for anything can hinder you from enjoying the journey you are taking to get there.  I think I just have to accept that I can’t know the end to every story, especially when I am not the author of it.  What God has planned for me is what he has planned and the only part that I can control is the lessons I take away from the process.  I think God has been trying to tell me to enjoy the journey and let him worry about where I end up.  It’s about time that I start to listen! 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Control Issues

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I haven’t really been feeling myself lately and it’s started to affect my writing but I suppose the truth is that it’s only been able to affect my writing because I have subconsciously allowed it too.  I got a good lecture from Ms. L. today about how I can not allow myself to get so depressed over the things that I can’t control that it takes away my power to do what it is I can control.  So I have to somehow drag myself out of this funk that I seem to be in and pour my energy into doing what I know I’m supposed to be doing right now.  I can’t control the things that are continuing to go wrong in my life but my writing career is something that I can control (at least the aspects of it that don’t involve investing money right now) so I have to direct my focus on that.  I know what I need to do now I just have to buckle down and do it.  

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress