Tag: writing

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Banishing the Age Old Excuse

April 6, 2012 jcladyluv

“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.”

~Dale E. Turner

This morning as I was watching the news they started talking about baseball (which is my least favorite sport, next to golf) and I started to go into my usual mode whenever I heard baseball mentioned, ignore mode. But this time something caught my attention, enough to actually make me sit and listen.

They were discussing the oldest major league pitcher to have ever played baseball. Jamie Moyer is a 49 year old pitcher who is now playing with the Colorado Rockies after suffering an elbow injury in 2010 that caused him to lose an entire season of playtime. The injury required him to have reconstructive surgery (Tommy John Surgery) with an estimated recovery time of at least a year.

The word throughout the sports world was that his career was most likely over because this was not his first injury. However, Jamie Moyer had other things in mind then letting go of his career, although his career has already surpassed many of the people he came into the league with and he was now playing with men of the next generation of baseball.

All he wanted was the chance to prove to all of the people who said he was too old or that he didn’t throw hard enough anymore that he could in fact do this once again. They gave him his chance and he proved them wrong and now he could potentially be making history as the oldest major league baseball pitcher to ever win a game.

It got me to thinking about all of the times that I doubted continuing my efforts as a writer because I was starting to feel as though maybe I was getting too old to be starting out in this career. I mean in my mind I should’ve already done so many great things within my career by now and I have, instead, been stuck going around in circles. Watching that story on the news this morning taught me something. The age factor is only in my mind, not anyone else’s.

Jamie Moyer commented that “as long as you have an opportunity you can succeed, but you have to be willing to put the time and the effort into it.” Essentially as long as the opportunities keep presenting themselves to me, I don’t have a reason (or rather an excuse) to not go after them.

People often tell me that I waste a lot of time watching TV and watching the news, but I never listen to that because I know what I get out of it. I get inspiration and I get motivated. I hear other people’s stories and experiences and I receive the wisdom and lessons that they try to impart to those that are watching and listening.

Today, just in those five minutes that I watched that news piece I saw someone who wouldn’t let people tell him he was too old to continue on with his dream. I saw someone who didn’t use his age as an excuse to just give up. I heard something that motivated me to give up my last excuse for not going after every single opportunity that comes my way, especially the ones that are a pathway to my dreams.

I will only be too old when I can’t write anymore and my fingers can’t translate the words from my mind onto paper (or computer screen). As long as I have ideas in my head and the ability to convey them, I will never be too old. Hell even in my senior years (I mean really old-80’s old), I can still dictate my thoughts into a tape recorder and (if the arthritis has really set in) have someone else type up my work. Age really is just a number, not a dream killer!

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 No Matter What of It All

April 5, 2012 jcladyluv

“No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”

~Madonna

This week I have actually been really productive, or at least more productive then I’ve been in a really long time. I am starting to feel that drive again to get what I need done no matter what. I heard a celebrity say once that those three words were words that drove her to the level of success that she had reached. She said that if she always told herself ‘no matter what’ the job or task had to get done then she would be driven to do it. It may not be done perfectly or maybe not even in its entirety, but it will get done. I’ve been thinking a lot about those three words and this week that is what I have had in my mind. Instead of trying to make everything perfect and get every single thing done, I have just been content on getting whatever I could get done, no matter what.

I was talking to Ms. L. last night and I told her about the submission that I finally sent off to a magazine. It sounds like something that you would think I had been doing on a regular basis by this point but sadly it was not. I have spent months agonizing over whether editors will like my article ideas, whether my writing was really as good as I thought it was that they would even pay attention to a query from me, but mostly I had been trying to figure out how to write the PERFECT query letter. I have stacks and stacks of books (and internet research) on how to write a perfect (or irresistible) query but none of them seemed to help me. I had sworn that I would not send out a query until I got the query letters just right. The problem with that theory was that none of my query letters were coming out perfectly, so of course nothing was being sent off.

This week I said that I was just going to start sending query letters, even if they weren’t perfect, even if they weren’t even close to being right, because if I don’t send anything out then obviously no one will see my work and I will never see my byline in any national magazine. So I did. I sent a submission, and it was indeed imperfect, but it also indeed felt really good. The thing is that I can’t promise that the queries will be perfect, but I imagine that with more practice in sending them out on a more consistent basis, they will get better.

I also told Ms. L. that I was going to work on my latest novel that I have yet to finish because I honestly haven’t touched it since the end of National Novel Writing Month (I’m not sure why I haven’t). I said that even if I didn’t write much on it that I would at least work on it for half an hour, no matter what. I in fact did work on my novel, and though I did not write much on it, I did write for a half an hour. I plan on working on it tonight as well.

I am finding that this week is turning out to do for me exactly what I wanted it to do for me (at least on the writing level) which is re-light that fire under me to get moving and put all my plans in motion. I think now that I have really started to visualize my dreams I can begin to see them as my reality. It’s helping me put some action into all of the planning that I have been doing. It feels really good to feel that fire starting to burn again. I just hope it doesn’t go out again anytime soon. I’ve got too much lost time to make up for. But I will get the job done, No Matter What!

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

Spring Cleaning for Creativity’s Sake

March 28, 2012 jcladyluv

Ms. L.’s post yesterday reminded me that it’s that time of year again. You know, the time when everyone starts to begin thinking about all of the spring cleaning they have to do. I am really big on getting into the whole spring cleaning vibe and going through and tossing out old clothes, doing a big clean up around the house that involves not only mopping all floors but also wiping down all surfaces until they are spotless, and tackling the re-organizing my tiny little corner of an office in my room. But spring cleaning should not stop after the household messes that we have been putting off for just such a time for mass clean-up are actually done.

For us creative types spring cleaning doesn’t just end at the household, but it transcends to spring cleaning your mind, your spirit, and your body, in an effort to spark your creativity and become even more productive. For me, there are three things that affect my creativity in a negative way; if my house is a mess, if my body isn’t feeling its best, and if my mind is cluttered with conflicting and contradicting thoughts.

I feel like it’s not just my house that I have to get in order (as far as cleaning), but that I need to amplify my efforts on maintaining good healthy habits (helps with the stress), and most of all I need to really get my head in the right frame of mind and focused on what’s important and what needs to be done. As you all know I am really concentrating on getting that fire back about my writing goals and making the things happen that I want to happen. Hopefully spring cleaning on all fronts will help me do that.

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

Proceed Without Caution

March 27, 2012 jcladyluv

“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”

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

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

Reigniting an Old Flame

March 26, 2012 jcladyluv

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.”

~George Claude Lorimer

I listened to Ms. L. the other day as she talked about the series of articles that she just had published in her city’s local newspaper and the projects that she has coming up (let me add, paying projects), and how she is really starting to make some pretty good income with her writing just as she wanted to do with her business. Just as we both had hoped to do with our businesses. She is beginning to flourish and I am really proud of her. But honestly I am a tad bit jealous as well (but not in the bad way). It’s not that I don’t want her to succeed but I just wish that I was flourishing just as much as her, alongside her.

When I listen to her and hear her talk about her daily activities and just how productive she has been I see the same fire lit under her and the same drive inside of her that I used to have. She’s always on the go and pulling all-nighters and I can remember when I used to be the same way. My drive was so intense that I barely slept and I would skip meals just so that I could work on my writing. I have no idea when that fire in me started to die down. I didn’t mean for it to.

I know that I haven’t loss my passion for writing or for any of the things that I hope to do with my writing and my media company that I am currently trying to build up. I have a multitude of plans and my brain is constantly turning with more and more ideas by the hour, sometimes by the minute. But yet when it comes to actually executing those ideas and plans, after I’ve done all of the normal things that need to be done during my day, I sit down and the act of execution on those plans falls by the waist-side. I get tired and at times I accidentally fall asleep without ever tackling any of the things on my to-do list.

I don’t mean to be such a full blown procrastinator and I certainly don’t mean to have a head (and notebook) full of plans and ideas and never accomplishing even a tenth of them. I wish I had an explanation (at least a good one) for falling down on the job of making my dreams happen and I wish I understood why my drive and my fire isn’t naturally there the way it used to be, but I don’t. All I know is that this week I plan to get it together because I will only have myself to blame if I fail and no one else can make this happen for me.

I suppose I will just have to do what people do when they go to start their stove and they hear the clicking sound but yet the fire doesn’t immediately come on like it used to. They don’t just stop cooking their food, they go light a match or a lighter and get the fire started again themselves. I know that I still love what I do and I know I still have the passion for it and now I am just going to find a way to reignite the fire so that my dreams don’t burn out too. If any of you out there are feeling like the biggest procrastinator in the world, you are not alone and it does not have to stay that way. The flame can always be reignited, even if it has to be done manually.

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

Stepping Out on Faith and Sowing Seeds into Your Own Success

March 20, 2012March 20, 2012 jcladyluv

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. ²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. ²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” ²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹ “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” ³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

–Matthew 14: 22-33

I have so much trouble with investing in myself, in particular, in the business that I am trying to build up. It seems every time that I actually take the initiative and have the faith to go ahead and make an investment towards getting my business firmly off the ground, I turn around and face the almost immediate needs of my daughter. Now of course children need things all the time and I always make sure she’s taken care of first. However, it seems like just when I’m at a point where she appears to have everything she needs for the time being and I feel I can actually put money into myself (my writing career) then a sudden need arises and I start to feel guilty that I’ve just put this money into me and not into her where it clearly needed to go.

Now Ms. L. lectured me about feeling guilty last night and reminded me that taking care of me first sometimes is the best way to take care of her all the time but it doesn’t always feel that way. When I was in the gym this morning the guys were having a specific conversation that seemed to be perfect for the guilt (or possible lack of faith) that I was feeling. Oddly enough, I almost did not go to the gym this morning because it was raining and I had planned on using the rain as my excuse to stay home. But God had other plans and made sure that I went anyway.

They were talking about the story from the bible of when Jesus walked on water and he walked out to the boat with his disciples in it and Peter told Jesus that if it was in fact him to call him over to him, and he went and Peter was walking to Jesus on water. He was doing fine until he felt a gust of wind and a burst of fear and lost sight of Jesus and his faith in him and he began to sink into the water, drowing. He cried out for Jesus to save him and Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” If Peter had felt the wind and still had faith and kept his eyes on Jesus he would have been fine. If he had just kept his faith and had not doubted, not even for a second, he would not have felt the fear of drowning.

I feel that story not only applies to what I am dealing with, but also anyone out there who is struggling with their faith in what it is they are trying to do, what they may be called to do. If I were to stop taking my focus off of God and his plans for me, if I were to stop letting every little gusts of wind throw me off and make me afraid, I could only imagine how far I might be in my journey by now. I could imagine the voice of God in my head as he talks to me saying something to the effect of ‘If you would just have faith in what I have planned for you and follow through without getting afraid then you could be halfway there by now’. If he did say that, he would one hundred percent right.

I don’t always have a good track record of trusting in the unknown and the things that have no guarantees. It’s not that I don’t have faith in God and his plan for me, it’s that my nature to worry about all of the what ifs has a tendency to take me off the faith driven path (just a bit). It’s something that I struggle with and am constantly working on, not taking my eyes off of God and his plans for me, learning not to worry about all of the what ifs that pop into my head and knowing that God has never let me down yet and wouldn’t start now. I struggle with not having the comfort of knowing what’s waiting for me on the other side. The truth is that I have to realize that it’s not always for me to know, but for me to trust in the guidance of God and know that he would never steer me wrong.

Oftentimes we tend to get caught up in the worrying of it all that we forget to just let go and have some faith. Whatever is going to happen, whatever God is going to do, will be one anyway, whether it’s what we expected or not. We can’t be so riddled with doubt in ourselves and in his plans that we never even step out of the boat. We’ve got to have faith and know that God would not lead us on the water only to let us drown.

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

Sometimes the Mission Chooses You

March 19, 2012 jcladyluv

“You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won’t help, but that is no excuse, you must still act.”
~Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

It’s hard for anyone to know as a small child what they will be when they grow up. Lots of children say they want to be a doctor or a teacher and then they change their minds when they find another thing they are more passionate about. Some children (like me) discover a passion and it never goes away. I’m not sure how many people aspired to be an activist when they were younger but it is amazing how the experiences in your childhood could fuel a mission that you never even knew was waiting for you.

When I was younger I was bullied and picked on a lot and not just by the kids at school. Mostly it was because of my weight but a lot of it was also because I didn’t necessarily fit in with the other kids at school. I was always a creative, artsy, type and most of the kids didn’t really understand me. I had hoped that when I had a child that the bullying would skip over her and that she would not have to endure that kind of hell. Unfortunately kids have not changed much since I was little, in fact, they’ve only gotten worse.

Seeing the bullying that goes on in today’s society makes what I went through (at least by the kids at school anyway) look like it was nothing. Kids now just really like to humiliate other kids that have even the slightest appearance of a weakness or a difference. They don’t stop at just hurtful and derogatory words, they are getting physical and their attitude is nonchalant about anyone else’s feelings but their own. The kids in my daughters class literally make me want to forget that I am a Christian because when I see how they act I want to shake them and ask them what their problem is. They are bullies and they are proud of it.

I started thinking about what I could do to change things if I was in the position that I had planned on being by now. If I were someone like Oprah or Lady GaGa, with their money, their prestige, and their power (in a sense) just imagine what I could do as far as taking a stand against the bullying that is relentless in schools today. But when I watched Oprah’s next chapter last night, which was a special on Lady GaGa and her Born This Way Foundation (fighting against bullying), I realized that someone without all of that money, prestige, and power, can still be effective right where they live.

I started to realize, with all of the bullying that is getting worse as the years go on, and the kids who are literally pushed so far that they sometimes take their own life, it doesn’t matter who is taking a stand as long as someone takes one. Just as I am sure that Lady GaGa and Oprah never set out to be an activist of any kind, I am also sure that the experiences that they went through in their youth were somehow, even then, preparing them for that exact journey.

I myself would have never thought that there would be anything good that could’ve possibly come from my childhood experiences. However, I am starting to feel something inside me that is pulling me in the direction of using those experiences to take a stand against bullying. I may not be able to reach people on a national level but I most certainly think that there has to be something that I can do, or get the right people to do, for the schools in my immediate area (starting with my daughter’s school).

I’m no Oprah or Lady GaGa, but I am me and I think that if I wait until I am in the position that they are in (because I do believe I will get there someday in the near future) that it may just be too late (especially for my own daughter). I think that I want to start looking into the ways that ordinary people like me can do something about this epidemic (because that’s what it’s becoming). Who knew that I would ever want to be an activist of any kind? I guess sometimes those childhood traumas you thought you would never get past can be used to help prevent someone else from going through the same kind of pain that you did.

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

Building a Better Relationship with Your Writer Self

March 17, 2012 jcladyluv

On my post the other day I wrote about my “marriage” to writing and my wanting to improve my relationship. Well I wanted to share with all of you, some of the different ways that any writer can improve their relationship to their writing and become more harmonious and at ease with their craft. I hope that some of these tips help you the way they are helping me.

1) Read, read, read! Don’t forget that you have to still be a good reader too. A writer can not be so caught up with trying to write their great work of art that they forget to read others great works of art as well.

2) Keep a separate notebook that is just for the ideas that come to your mind sporadically. You have to be ready to capture those thoughts at a moment’s notice because if you wait too long you can lose them (trust me I know).

3) For all of those techno-savvy people out there who have completely given up the (seemingly) dying art of paper and pen, put down the ipad from time to time and remind yourself what it feels like to put pen to paper. There is nothing like writing longhand to get your thoughts flowing so don’t lose sight of that.

4) If you are a planner (like me) and you know that planning things out works better for you then don’t give into the advice that some writers will give you about writing without a plan. That does not work for everyone and if you know that having a list of what projects you need to work on will help you get it done quicker, then make that list. If you know that outlining will help you write that novel better and quicker then write that outline. Good advice is only good if it actually works for you and not against you.

5) Sign up for a writing course or a writing networking event or conference. It gives you the opportunity to talk to and get to know other writers who may be struggling with some of the same things you are, or writers that you can help as well. It will also give you a chance to make contacts that you will be thankful you have in the future.

I hope that something on the list above helps someone else out there other than me. Of course what is important for every writer out there to do to have a good relationship with their writer selves is to actually write. I hope you are all crafting some wonderful stories this weekend!

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

Everybody Does Not Need To Know Your Status

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012 jcladyluv

Okay for anyone who knows me, either personally or through this blog, you know that I am not a huge fan of social media and the overuse of technology. As a writer it has become necessary for me to learn how to adapt to using social media and truthfully I still have some work to do in that department as far as using it effectively. Now I use facebook and twitter and other forms of social media to share my writing and things about me as a writer, and to network with other writers or like minded business people.

I know that there are others who use social media for those purposes as well but that take it to a whole other level by displaying every, little, single, detail of their personal life on the internet. I still do not understand this, and I don’t think that I ever will. There is no logical reason that everyone in the whole entire world (and that’s what the internet includes) needs to know what you had to eat for a particular meal, or how bad (or good) your relationship is going on any given day of the week.

There is no reason why people (possibly future or present employers) need to see the enormous amount of partying that you may have done over the weekend or the half nudity that you chose to display (because you thought it was cute and your friends were not honest enough to tell you otherwise). I don’t think that facebook was ever intended for the unfolding of one’s every move on the internet for all to bear witness to.

In fact Mark Zuckerberg originally created facebook so that the college students attending Harvard could be aware of the activities going on within the campus. If you go to his facebook page he does not even take facebook to the ridiculous extremes that everyone else has chosen to take it to. Somewhere between when social networking sites were developed up until now people seem to have lost sight of the whole point which was to actually network.

Networking does not include (last time I checked) sharing what meal you had for lunch (unless it is a meal that you had at some type of business event or conference), or that you saw someone walking around with a very unflattering outfit on that you couldn’t help but judge them for, or that you let the world see you half-naked pouring countless alcoholic beverages down your throat. It certainly does not mean that everyone in the world needs to know who you are dating and whether your relationship with them is in a good or bad place. That is not networking. That is simply sharing too much unnecessary personal information.

It amazes me how people are so surprised that someone (sometimes their employers) they never told anything to somehow ended up knowing intimate details of their lives. It’s because you choose to air your dirty (or clean) laundry out for all to see. It’s pretty simple, if you don’t show it or tell it all on facebook or twitter or whatever form of social media you are using at the moment, then everyone (that you might not want to be) won’t be all in your personal life.

Let’s try and remember what networking truly means (but just in case any of you out there might have forgotten it is centered below) and maybe we could actually avoid abusing and misusing the social media networking sites.

Definition of NETWORKING

net·work·ing (noun)

‘The exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically : the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business.’

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”