Tag: writing

Passionate Writer

jcladyluv

“A strong passion for anything will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.”
~William Hazlitt 

Very seldom do I ever wish that I could go back in time to when I was younger, perhaps in high school, and just live in that moment for while.  Perhaps I would enjoy and take stock in the moments when I wrote simply because it was all I could do to get my feelings out, or when writing was not so much of a job or chore and more of a past time that I didn’t have to actually think about anything past the point of writing the actual story.  

Now don’t get me wrong, I still absolutely love to write and I could never imagine anything else that I should be doing in this life or the next other than writing.  But before there was the business aspect of writing (the hardest part of being a writer), and the marketing and publicity aspect, and the managing sales figures and making sure you are actually making money off of your passion, there was simply just the passion of it all.  

I remember rushing to get home to just get the words of my characters out on paper (because back then I wrote long-hand), and I remember the feeling of accomplishment when the story was finished and when someone else told me that my words meant something to them.  I didn’t worry so much back then about how to get my words published and how to market and how to make actual profits off of my work.  I just knew that writing was my life’s dream and that was how I wanted to make my living.  I knew that I wanted to make the best seller’s lists and write movies and write for magazines and television shows and that I wanted my living to be made from what I loved to do more than anything in the world.  

Now I am making schedule’s to try and fit what I love into the rest of my life and reading and teaching myself about things pertaining to marketing and publicity, which are things I really don’t care about, but I have to know these things to make what I love to do work for me.  I would just love to get to that point again where all I have to think about is the sheer enjoyment of writing my words down on paper and telling the story of my characters; back to the moment when I first fell in love with writing to begin with.  

However, in reality, I want my words to be seen by the world and that part of my dream takes work and hard labor.  But it is definitely a labor of love and one that I am willing to make many sacrifices for.  So what are you most passionate about and are you willing to put in the hard labor to make it happen?  Until next time…be blessed and make your labor of love count! 

 

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

Even the Mind Needs to be Recharged

jcladyluv

“If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies.  And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.”

~Oprah Winfrey 

Sitting in the starbucks working on trying to finish up my list for this week and just remembered that I have not yet posted my third blog post for this week, which is on my list.  So while this post will not be long because I must get back to working on this query letter, I thought I would say a few words.  More than anything this is for my best friend who always motivates me to get out of my own way and stop insisting that I can’t do something and change my way of thinking.  Today she is having one of those “I don’t really feel like doing anything” days and while I know I started to get on her about working on her list for this week, I stopped myself to tell her that it’s okay because sometimes we just have those days.  I had months of those days so who am I to get on her about anything.  Sometimes the mind just needs to rest and recharge its batteries and that’s okay. 

If we really think about it, recharging the mind does have a lot to do with completing our tasks and our goals because if our minds aren’t sharp then nothing we produce will be of much good.  So to my very best friend, and any other writer out there who is just having one of those days, don’t feel too bad because in actuality as long as your mind is still spinning those ideas around in your head then you haven’t really stopped working.  Until next time…let your mind recharge, and begin again tomorrow! 

 

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

It’s All About Accountability

jcladyluv

“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.”

~Moliere 

So today I had planned on working on so many different things pertaining to my writing and my many other ideas.  I even made a list for the week of the specific goals that I really want to get accomplished this week and my best friend made a list too in which we emailed to each other so that we can hold each other accountable for them.  

Now I know the week’s just gotten started and there is plenty of time during the week to actually accomplish those things but I guess I just thought that as excited as I was to get started this morning, I wouldn’t get stalled as soon as I sat down at the computer.  However, that is exactly what happened.  

So I decided to write this post because it is actually one of the only steps that I have made thus far today towards my goals for this week which include posting here at least 3 times this week.  I suppose you could say I used my lack of focus and concentration to my advantage specifically for this blog post.  That way if I do nothing else today then I have at least posted 1 of my 3 blog posts for the week.  

Now I am not completely giving up hope for producing something else over the course of the rest of the day but I really hope that tomorrow will be more eventful and more productive.  I have a very ambitious list for the week but I have the very best friend and motivator in the world, which happens to be one hell of a writer, with very high standards that will hold me accountable for anything that I do not get accomplished.  

On that note I guess I better go continue staring at the computer hoping that the words will somehow begin to flow and that my mind won’t continue to wonder.  Until next time…..How do you hold yourself accountable? 

 
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

The Writer and Their Distractions

jcladyluv

“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.”
~ Adam Hochschild 

I have come to realize and accept the fact that writing completely without distractions is essentially impossible.  From the television, to social media, and just life in general, distractions are just a part of anyone’s career path.  I’ve also discovered that there are in fact some distractions that are not really a distraction, simply background material for you next story, or inspiration for your next article.  When writers go to coffee shops to get some work done, most people would wonder how that is conducive to one’s writing because there is so much noise and so many different conversations going on at the same time around you.  What non-writers fail to realize is that those multiple conversations can work their way in to so much of your stories or inspire new one’s.  

Those aren’t the distractions that hinder me when it comes to my productivity.  One of the biggest distractions that can be my downfall, yet can also be my inspiration, is the television.  I try to escape it but there’s always something on it that intrigues me and gets the wheels in my mind turning and thinking of other ideas.  Now this would be good if I was struggling with coming up with ideas but the problem is I have way too many ideas.  But if I turn the television off then the complete silence becomes an even bigger distraction than the TV itself.  

I guess a writer can never really get away from their distractions completely.  There are many ways that they could probably limit or eliminate them in an effort to become more productive but maybe the key is in figuring out how to make the distractions work for you.  I haven’t quite mastered that part yet but I am working on it everyday.  I did manage to come up with a small list of a few things that hopefully will enable those writers who are having the same struggles with distractions that I’m having: 

  1. Write By Hand- This enables you to get away from the computer completely, and all of the distractions that the computer holds.  Also having to actually write out your words allows you to examine them as you go along and sometimes the words flow easier. 
  1. Turn off the Phone- No one can help but to look at their phone when it rings or when you get a text message and of course if you look at the phone when it rings then you are most likely going to answer it.  To avoid this timely distraction turn the cell phone off for the amount of your time that you decide to write. 
  1. Close out the window with the Internet- If you absolutely can not see yourself writing long-hand and must use the computer then be sure to close all other windows besides the one with your project.  While you are typing out your story, or whatever project you are working on, have no other screen up or minimized waiting on you to click on.  If you can see the other window (even minimized) you will want to click on it.  It almost sounds too simple but it really works! 
  1. Write every Morning- Getting up an hour earlier in the morning allows you time when the rest of the world, and your household, is still sleep and you can have complete concentration on your work before your day even really gets started.  Now this one is hard for me to do but I think I am even going to put more effort into making this one work for me. 
  1. Find your Place- Now some writers have certain places where they have to write.  They literally can not write anything if they are not in their special writing place.  So if there is a place that the words just flow easier and naturally then that’s where you should probably try to write all of the time.  I believe I am one of those writers but economically it just isn’t possible for me to go where I need to go everyday to write.  

If any of you writer’s out there has any tips and ideas on how I, or any other writer with this same problem, can minimize their distractions, or make them work for them, please feel free to share.  Until next time…I will be busy fighting off my current distraction, the TV!  

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

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

Are You Waiting for the Muse To Strike?

jcladyluv

“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.”

~Gerald Brenan~ 

There are a lot of notions and fantasies about being a writer.  The idea of waiting for the muse to suddenly walk into your atmosphere and only writing when inspired is a nice way to look at the life of a writer and a very nice fantasy.  It’s the way I looked at writing once upon a time, largely due to the fact that at one point in my life it seemed as if the muse never left me and I was always inspired in one way or another.  I never had a problem with only writing when inspiration struck because with me it always seemed to strike.  It was when the muse left and the inspiration was no longer an everyday occurrence that I started to wonder, “If the inspiration isn’t there and the muse is gone and I am not writing at a steady flow, can I still consider myself a writer?”  

There are still those writers’ who are always inspired and the muse seems to always be there for them and that is a wonderful thing.  But that alone is not the only thing makes a person a writer.  A person can still be a writer even if it means them having to appoint a designated time to write and put together a schedule of the projects that they need to work on.  Scheduling a time to write does not remove the artistic creativity in writing like so many people seem to think.  I mean if you think about it, that makes more sense doesn’t it?  A person who makes a living as a freelance writer can not simply wait to be inspired.  They have to make a plan of action and follow through with it or they don’t make a living.  

When I think of all of the time I have wasted waiting for some miraculous moment of inspiration to just jump up and hit me, I try not to think about the amount of novels I could’ve finished, or all of the magazines that I could’ve queried by now, or all of the many ideas I could have made come into fruition.  What makes a writer is someone who puts tenacity and determination behind their drive to write and sitting in that chair behind that desk in front of that computer even though the words might not come that day.  

Well if you are out there, sitting around and waiting for your muse and inspiration to suddenly strike like lightening, I am going to tell you that while you are waiting your ideas are going to waste.  Your characters are going to stop speaking to you, and the stories that they are trying to tell you are disappearing and losing ground.  While you are waiting, the ideas for those articles that you want to pitch to those prestigious magazines are being written by someone else who knew better then to wait.  The screenplays that you are dreaming about writing are already being written by some other writer and you will no doubt be seeing them on the big screen wishing you had woken up out of your sleep and put those ideas down on paper.  

It’s always nice when you can get inspired by something or someone and when you can find that perfect moment of uninterrupted inspiration.  But how many novels could you have written while you were waiting for that moment?  How many magazines could you have seen your articles placed in waiting for that one thing that inspires you to sit down and write?  Shouldn’t seeing your name in print be inspiration enough?  It is for me.  Until next time….make every moment count, even the uninspired ones!  

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

In the Land of Writer’s Block

jcladyluv

For a long time I thought that writer’s block was simply a person being unable to write anything at all and unable to come up with ideas for things to write about.  While that is an aspect of the term writer’s block.  I didn’t think of the alternative which was that a person would be able to write, just not producing anything worth publishing. 

For a few months now I have been able to come up with ideas, research projects, and even create details for my writing projects for when I get back to actually writing.  The problem was that I wasn’t feeling motivated to actually write.  It was simply a bad case of letting life’s road blocks get in my way and affect my inspiration. 

Even as I am writing this and trying to get back into the swing of things I still feel somewhat blocked.  I mean I am beginning to feel more motivated and inspired to write and I am actually able to produce some wonderful work worth sharing when I get ready but I still feel that in many ways I am not back to my old self, full of inspiration and letting the muse take me on it’s many journey’s.  I still feel somewhat blocked. 

I am not sure which one is worse, being blocked in a way of not being able to create anything whatsoever, or being blocked in the sense of I can produce work but have it not be worth showcasing or up to your own expected standard of work.  I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that one once I figure it out.  Well I’m off to trying to be more productive today.  Until next time, be blessed!!! 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.wordpress.com/

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

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

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Planting the Seeds of Motivation

jcladyluv

“A guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.’ What if they don’t show up?  The best motivation is self-motivation.” 

~Jim Rohn, US motivational speaker 

I haven’t written anything here in a while and it was a break from writing that I hadn’t expected to take.  Somehow I have been letting stress and worry, and a little bit of fear, get in the way of my love of writing and my motivation to progress within my writing career and continue moving steadily forward.  I stalled.  I sat at the computer and stared at blank pages with the pages taunting me with their white empty space.  I tried for a while and I just couldn’t get inspired and the words just wouldn’t come.  

Now the whole time I was unable to write was not completely wasted because I did do research on some projects that I have on my list to start working on but I still felt quite unproductive.  Finally I realized that my stress and fear was increasing and that I couldn’t continue to toss my writing aside in hopes that the stress and fear would go away sooner rather than later.  I started to actually research things like what to do for lack of motivation and how to get motivated again.  

Guess what?  There is not magical cure for writer’s block due to depression and that there is no one right answer of how to move past it.  One piece of the same advice from many different successful and accomplished writers that stuck with me was that even when you don’t feel like writing, make a schedule and write anyway.  So I wrote out a list for all of the projects that I want to work on and get done and then I mapped out the week and began to decide what projects to work on and on what days to work on them.  

Now I don’t know if this is going to work and how well of a job I am going to do at sticking to the schedule that I set out to do but I do know that this blog post that I am writing at this very moment was the first thing of my schedule to do today and as you see I have completed that task.  All I can do is take this one day at a time and hope that I do what I set out to do.  

I guess I just always thought that it would be like it was when I was a little younger, where the words just flowed out of me and I had to actually stop myself from writing because otherwise I would’ve never slept.  Inspiration and the motivation to write was never a problem.  I hadn’t planned on life getting in the way and throwing me off my path.  

Now I am learning that sometimes inspiration and motivation aren’t just going to show up and tap me on the shoulder and the words can’t always flow that easily.  No matter what I still have to write because honestly I can’t see myself being happy doing anything else.  I am planting my own seeds of motivation and now I am going to work on steadily moving forward because I can’t afford to take any more steps back.    

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.wordpress.com/

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

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

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

No Matter How Hard It Gets

jcladyluv

“No one will ever see me quit, because I simply won’t. If I start something, I will finish it and do it well.”
~Steve Belmarsh 

I was thinking the other day about whether or not all of this time I have been trying to pursue my dreams of writing full time, owning my own publishing company, and magazine, I have just been kidding myself into thinking that I can really do this.  Maybe I’ve just been kidding myself that I am good enough to do this.  I mean I know I can write and that isn’t the problem.  It’s all of the other stuff that goes along with forging a successful writing career and becoming a successful entrepreneur, like being techno-savvy, and most importantly being able to put the money into it.  I think that I may have been kidding myself to think that sheer talent was all that it would take to turn my dreams into reality and that money was secondary because as much as I would like to think that money is not necessary when you have the talent and the drive, that is far from the truth.  

In the midst of this negative line of thinking that I try not to let get to me I was reminded of a song the other day from the movie The Five Heartbeats called “We Haven’t Finished Yet”.  In the first line of the song it talks about the fact that there are some people who run at the first sight of stormy weather and some people hold on and work it out.  I had to stop and think, “I’m not a quitter”, I don’t run just because something doesn’t work out the way I want it to, that just isn’t me at all.  The song made me think about how sometimes we just have to deal with things the way they are at the present moment and not get so caught up in the way that we wish that things could be.  True, things are not going the way I had hoped they would, but that just means I’m going to have to find other avenues to take towards making my dreams a reality.    

There are always going to be more days that I just want to throw my hands up and say forget it and just give up but I feel like if I give up now I’ll be missing out on my blessing that may be just around the corner.  The devil has really been working on my spirit and making me have all kinds of doubts about myself and my dreams and what contribution I can make to this world.  It’s funny how he seems to know just what buttons to push to make you start to go down the wrong path.  It’s even funnier just how strong you have to be to get back on the right one.  When I get to thinking that I can’t do this and I should just give up I’m going to remember the Five Heartbeats movie and think about that song and that “No matter how hard it gets” I’m not finished yet.  

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.wordpress.com/

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Writing in the Reality of the Moment

jcladyluv

“Reality isn’t the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.”

~Robert J. Ringer

I am a writer of many things.  Fiction of all types, poetry, articles that motivate and uplift, and articles that are meant to inform.  No one who writes, unless they particularly write nothing but children’s fairytales, is going to always produce things that are considered motivating and uplifting.  Some things that people write are just real.  It comes from a place of reality and living in the present moment and in the knowledge of knowing that, as much as we would like it to be true, every moment of people’s lives is not going to always be happy and uplifting and completely void of negative obstacles.  That’s just not the reality of things.  

So when someone tells me that an article that I wrote to be informative and educate people, who may or may not know certain aspects of a health related disease, is stemming from a place of darkness and negativity it makes me want to literally curse them out and throw something, preferably at them.  This particular person would like me to write of nothing but motivating and uplifting things and speak of absolutely nothing that might be negative.  That’s not real for me.  

For one I don’t consider the article that I wrote, “The Rise of Lung Cancer in Non-smoking women”, to be dark and negative.  It simply is meant to inform people on things they may not even know concerning the disease.  I was informed just by researching the subject.  Secondly, I don’t feel like I have to be placed in this box as a writer of only writing and producing motivational articles.  I like to write a little bit of everything but most importantly I like to keep whatever I write (except for fiction) very real. 

The funny thing to me is that someone making that type of comment to me appeared and came off as completely negative.  As if they were someone just trying to get me riled up and trying to plant seeds of doubt or self consciousness in my mind.  It’s almost as if they somehow thought that this would make me just all of a sudden change my style of writing and the things that I put out there for the world to see.  

Truthfully it did make me angry but it didn’t deter me from writing my way and on my terms.  I write from the heart, whatever way I happen to feel, whatever information I want to convey or educate people with.  While I do love when people like what it is that I have written, I write for me first and for the world second.  Now maybe that’s wrong in some people’s eyes but if I wrote to try and please everyone else then I may possibly be the one who is not pleased with what I am writing and then I am no longer writing for the sheer love of writing.  

My words to the world of writers today is to always stay true to who you are in your writing.  Everyone is not going to like what you have to say but the important thing is that you say it, however you want to say it.  Write for the moment you are living in and from the place you are coming from.  Don’t ever let anyone else dictate what your voice as a writer should be. 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/ 

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

 

Staying the Course

jcladyluv

“When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.”

~ Unknown

 Often times in life while trying to strive toward our dreams and make them come true we tend to get off track and stray from the course.  We start to lose momentum and seem to forget what matters the most.  We lose focus and let other things and people become more important and change the direction in which we are going.    So when do we reprioritize our lists of goals and finally get focused enough to turn them into the reality that we want them to be?  

Apart of staying focused on moving forward with your future involves letting go of certain things from your past.  Sometimes we don’t realize that we tend to hold onto what hinders us the most because we like what feels familiar and comfortable.  In order to stay focused you have to be willing to put other things that are not conducive to you achieving your ultimate goal aside.  You have to come to the realization that whether we want them to or not people and circumstances do change and the people that we re-route our lives for may not be going in the same direction. 

How our life ends up depends on how driven we are to get what we want out of it.  However that involves knowing exactly what it is that you want and what it’s going to take to get there.  Being focused takes practice and action and the process begins in the mind.  Once you’ve set your goal than all that’s left is putting it in motion and if you act like you already have what you want you’ll feel as if you’ve already succeeded.  You have to have the confidence that you will attain your dreams because without that confidence you’ll start to let in the doubt.  

Being focused is a journey in which you have to keep learning and practicing along the way.  You’re directions and paths may change and you may even get sidetracked from time to time but you can’t get distracted when what you’ve always wanted could be right within your reach.  Its hard to just throw caution to the wind and toss out all of the things that are familiar to you but if you want to get the best out of your life than you have to take action every day because there’s no time to waste. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing in life ever just happens. 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/ 

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter