Thursday, October 21, 2010

Announcing My Debut Novel

What if you discovered that the sins of your mother’s past will forever haunt your future? That finding out the secrets that she took to her grave would turn your life upside down?

To the rest of the world Corynn Hayes was a brilliant writer and entrepreneur. To Karlee Jones, she was not only a mother but a best friend. Until Corynn’s unexpected death, Karlee thought that she knew everything there was to know about her mother. Then Karlee receives her mother’s diary as a farewell gift. The depth of the secrets within those pages end up devastating Karlee, forever changing the memory of her mother and of everything she thought to be true.

The Diary: Succession of Lies is a novel that exposes the secret life of a mistress. It is a tale of love, lust, loss, and redemption as well as the trials of two generations of women. The Diary takes a new spin on the mistress image, a woman often vilified throughout literature as a harlot and a home wrecker. It tackles several questions. Why does a mistress stay? Is love possible in such a taboo relationship? Is love enough to endure the consequences that come later?

Jimmetta Carpenter, writing as Jaycee Durant, is the editor of the Free Fall Literary Ezine and Spoken Like a Queen. She also has a volume of poetry, The Art of Love, available at www.lulu.com published under the pseudonym Gemini.


Purchase your very own copy online today by clicking on one of the links below.

Hope to get your support.


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
http://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

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Dating Game

It seems that dating and relationships come with a set of rules that aren’t necessarily clear and concise. There are separate rules for the men and separate rules for the women and then there are the rules that apply to either side. You have the rules to get a guy or girls attention and then of coarse the rules that you must follow in order to keep the guy or girl that you are trying so hard to impress with a totally different set of rules. It’s all quite confusing to me because if the only way that you can have a relationship or date anybody to figure out if you even want a relationship is to play games with him or her then what is the point. You play games to get them and to keep them but what happens to all of your games when you lose them from playing too many games.

I found a list of rules for women to attract that special someone and among them I found ones as ridiculous as don’t talk to him first and don’t make eye contact. Don’t accept a date with him for Saturday if it is after Wednesday. Don’t call him first and by all means if he does call you then never answer the first phone call because then you appear desperate. For the men there were equally ridiculous ones such as don’t call her for three days after you get her number and if you do call her and she doesn’t answer the first time then wait an additional two days before trying again. If she calls you then screen her and don’t answer and only return her calls after two days from the date of her call. It’s just plain silly.

This is the year 2007 and if a woman wants to talk to a man first then she should be able to without making it appear as if she is desperate and why shouldn’t a woman be able to call a man if she chooses to. Why would a man wait three days to call a woman who he was interested in enough to get her phone number. And with the whole thing of waiting several days to return a phone call on both sides it’s a wonder that men and women ever get to the point of actually holding a conversation let alone going out on a date. With all of the games that are played and no one to really keep a fair score how does anyone ever know who really wins.

It’s so funny because the very thing that we do to get a person and maintain that person is the very thing that you don’t want a whole lot of when you are in that relationship. It’s kind of a double standard don’t you think. I mean we don’t want to be lied to or toyed with but yet we do lie and we do toy with people’s emotions. Initially before a relationship blossoms we play this little game of who’s going to call who first and I don’t want to seem too eager so I’m not going to be the one to make the first move. We go back and forth with ourselves concerning whether or not we should let the person know we had a good time the other night and we’re supposed to make sure that they don’t think that we are interested in them even if we really are and it’s just plain stupid.

When do the games come to an end? Will it be when there is no one for anyone because everyone on one side of the fence thinks that the people on the other side of the fence aren’t interested? No one is ever going to find their happily ever after with anyone if they have the mindset that you have to play games in order to get or keep someone’s attention. We will all be stuck wondering why he or she didn’t call me back and then kicking ourselves for not taking the bull by the horns. I thought that we had left the games behind in elementary school and even high school but apparently they have seemed to carry over to adulthood. When are we just going to grow up and realize that the games we play will eventually have to come to an end or else we’re just going be left hurt and alone? Then who will we have to play games with?



Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Coming September 2010)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://freemynd.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Can Women Really Have Sex like Men?

There are several answers to that question and it really and truly does depend on the person that is being asked. There are some women that are able to detach themselves from the emotional part of sex just like men do. They can have a casual fling with someone and think nothing of it the very next day and never call the man they just slept with again. In fact I know one or two that would prefer it that way. I mean let’s be honest; it would feel somewhat good to make men feel even a fraction of the way they make us feel when they do the exact same thing to us. But whether it is the right reaction to have is another story entirely. The truth of the matter is that I actually thought that I could be one of those women. I have been in a place where I wanted to feel nothing for someone and that I didn’t want to have a connection with them. I guess I figured that it would make things a lot easier for me and less possible for me to ever get hurt again. But in exploring the possibility of me becoming a kind of person that I never envisioned myself being I discovered that casual is definitely not for everybody.

Sometimes when we get hurt we get this urge to either hurt back or just totally cut off our emotions and pretend that we can separate our actions from what we feel. It works for some people but it can’t work forever and it doesn’t work for everybody. I discovered recently that I am one of those people that it can not work for. I wanted to believe that I could be one of those women who could just be with someone that I had absolutely no feelings for just to get the physical sensation that I so badly needed. It would’ve been so much easier if I could’ve been. But in just thinking about the act of me having casual sex devoid of emotions made me sick to the point of wanting to throw up and it made me cry. I have nothing against those women who can do that but I am definitely not one of those women.

For me sex is about 10% physical and 90% emotional. I can not see giving any part of me or my body to a person who I have not given a little piece of my heart to. To me the emotional is what makes the actual physical part of sex feel good. I haven’t been able to understand how there are some women who can have emotionless sex despite the many attempts that some have tried to explain to me. I don’t knock them for it because that’s their decision and their life but in a way I feel like there’s a certain amount of sorrow I should have for them that they have to detach themselves that far from their emotions. It says a lot about a person who can take an act of love and passion that is supposed to be filled with an immeasurable amount of emotion and make it an act of what amounts to about as much as a lengthy workout.

When there is no emotion in the act of sex it is no longer beautiful and passionate. For me that would make it pointless. What’s the point if all you get out of it is the equivalent of an hour or two at the gym and that’s all it is for you. There should be emotion in sex and if you have cut yourself off from that then maybe you need to take a good hard look at yourself and figure out if that’s something you really want for yourself. Sex should mean something and we are used to men being able to make that act meaningless and lacking in emotion but when women start doing the same thing it just diminishes not only the sensuality of sex but the sanctity of love as well. So can women have sex like men? I think that maybe the real question is should we have sex like men? The answer is all up to you. What kind of woman are you?

By:
Jimmetta Carpenter

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Back to the Basics

When I posed the idea of discussing the fact that women and men need to get back to the basics and that women need to train their men I received an e-mail from a male subscriber saying that the problem is that women think they can train a man and change them. I wrote back to him that he had the wrong idea of what I was trying to say. I didn’t say “training” our men to say that we should focus on changing them. I said “training” as to say that we need to train them to know what our expectations and needs are out of a relationship with them. Sometimes the reason that a relationship isn’t going right isn’t always directly the man’s fault. Women tend to get mad because their not doing something that we want them to do or their doing something that we don’t want them to do but if we never told them that “hey, I don’t like it when you do this…” or “I feel I should be treated like this…” then how are they supposed to know that’s what we expect from them. We deserve, at the very least, the basic expectations in a relationship like a man who’s going to open our car door, and a man who’s going to call us at least once a day (if that’s how often we like to hear from them) but we can’t expect our men to know that’s what we want when we don’t tell them.

We are never going to find the “perfect” mate who is going to do everything just right and just the way that we like it. Nothing and no one is perfect but yet I still see people constantly talking about they want it all. They want the perfect ideal life and the perfect “do nothing wrong” man or woman to go along with it. I only wish that that was a possibility because then I would want first dibs but I have come to terms with the fact that men have flaws as do women and I have learned to live with the men and all of their flaws. If we spend so much time trying to correct every single little problem that we see in them and trying to change them into something that they are not then we might never truly be happy with what and who we have. Now if we just sit down with one another and tell each other what it is that we expect and what type of relationship it is that we want then a lot of time and heartache could be saved. That way we know that if this man isn’t the type to open car doors, or check in with us once a day or however often we want them to, or the type of man to buy you a card on your birthday, and we know that that’s what we want then why waste the time trying to change them and mold them. If they are the type of man to do those things then we are telling them upfront and therefore training them, or instilling in them the knowledge of what it is that we expect from them.

Now ladies I am not saying that we should expect them to give us everything and work for nothing and men I am not saying that we should go back to the caveman days where men went to work and made all of the money and women stayed home tending to the children and the upkeep of the house. What I am saying is that there are minimum basic needs to be met in a relationship by both men and by women and I think somehow we’ve gotten caught up in other things and larger desires of perfection that we’ve forgotten that. We can’t forget to tend to those little things that we used to like to do for each other just because we’ve gotten deeper into the relationship where we seek more elaborate and extravagant needs. Without those little details and displays of affection we will only loose out in the end.

There’s a lot to be said for the little things in a relationship and when you’re not in a relationship you really get a clearer picture of just how important those little things are. You tend to miss those little displays of affection like someone opening the car door for you, or buying you a card just because they want to tell you how they feel, or a kiss for no special reason at all. In searching for the bigger picture like what you can get out of him or her later on down the line you very often will loose the tenderness of living in the right now and then you end up missing out. There’s a reason that everyone always says that the best part of a relationship is the beginning. It’s because that’s the time when we cherish what we have the most. Maybe we should strive to make every day of our relationships like the beginning. They might just last longer that way.

Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://freemynd.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Comfortable Enough For You

They say that there is someone out there for everyone. They say that a person doesn’t have to lower their standards or alter their type in order to find that someone. Well after many years of searching for what is within my standards of a mate I am starting to draw the very real conclusion that maybe everything isn’t exactly going to work out quite the way it had been expected to. Unfortunately like many things in life that somehow get off course so can the drama of finding the right man.

It seems like every guy out there just wants to be mistreated. It may seem like I’m exaggerating but in my case and a lot of women that I know it rings true. There are women out there who pride themselves on cheating on men and taking whatever money they can get out of them just for sport and for some reason, unknown to me or any of the other good women out there, men love these women. It’s funny because a lot the men that complain about the mistreatment that they get are the one’s that seek out those particular women and that’s what they choose to hold onto.

As far as love is concerned you can pretty much navigate people into four major types. There are the good girls, the good guys, the bad girls and the bad guys. This is where everything gets unevenly matched up because as it would turn out the good guys like the bad girls, the bad guys like the bad girls and of course that leaves the good girls isolated and off to the side watching as they are yet again the last picked for the team. It never fails and it isn’t fair. A woman who is honest and faithful, not to mention loving and kind is the one that’s likely to be left still looking for love at the age of thirty while the women who cheat lie and steal their way into someone’s bed are the one’s who would’ve been divorced twice and working on the third by the time they reach thirty. It makes me question whether a man really does know a good woman when he sees one.

I hear the word “comfortable” mentioned a lot when it comes to relationships. A woman cheats and their mate stays because they’re “comfortable” staying with them. He may realize that he and his woman are not compatible with each other for whatever reason but he stays because he’s “comfortable”. He finds another woman that he’s more suitable with and he stays with the one he doesn’t want to be with anymore because he’s “comfortable”. A lot of men seem to get accustomed to a certain way of life, whether it’s the life they want or not, and stick with it but I’m beginning to be concerned with the fact that men don’t seem to know when to bow out until far too many people are hurt.

Men seem to have just as bad a judgment with women as women obviously do with men. Now I’m not saying that women don’t have the problem of always being attracted to problematic men and that they don’t fall into a pattern as well. However the difference between the two is that sooner or later women usually know when to say enough is enough. Men get comfortable with being comfortable, even if it is in a bad relationship, and they stay in a situation for years and years making for an ending that is bound to be hurtful and full of drama.

I guess it sounds like I’m being a little one sided here but I am a woman in search of a decent man. It just seems that the men I’m attracted to are all attracted to the women that treat them like, dare I say it, SHIT. I get the brush off’s like you’re a nice girl but you’re not my type or the ever so popular, you’re just too nice for me. Or I just get stuck loving a man who wants to stay in a bad relationship that just keeps getting worse. It just seems like no matter what, everyone is just going to be unevenly matched up. While a lot of women are out there looking for their ideal mate, their ideal mate will still be in a “comfortable relationship” until he decides “comfortable” just isn’t going to be enough.

Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://freemynd.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Glue That Binds

There is obviously more to life then love and the same goes for relationships as well. For years I lived under the misconceived notion that being in love was all a person needed and that once you had that you had it made. After quite a few bad relationships in which all that was going for them was the love, I slowly and painfully began to realize the truth. Love may just be the last thing that holds a relationship together. That’s not saying that love is the insignificant part of the relationship. It’s just that when there are so many underlying factors that are a major component in the glue holding relationships together, saying “But I Love You” may seem like a last stitch effort to mask all of the other problems that can’t be fixed.

One of the number one reasons that a relationship either doesn’t make it to the marriage phase or why the marriage itself doesn’t work is financial. Here is where saying I love you just doesn’t solve everything. The person that you select to be your mate has to be evenly yoked with you, if not on any other level, but financially. You need to be on the same page about what you want your finances to be or things are just not going to work out. I’ve seen too many people not go to the next step with a person because not only were their finances messed up (which they could’ve dealt with) but they seemed to have no immediate interest in fixing them. Planning a future means talking about finances and where the two of you stand on them and this card trumps love any day of the week because love can not keep a roof over your head or send your children to good school.

One of the other major things that dissolve a relationship or a marriage is SEX. Yes you may think that sex and love go hand in hand and often times they do. But with that love must come some chemistry and passion and compatibility. If your mate likes to try lots of new and experimental things and you are a straight laced, missionary position only type of person then unless you are willing to be more open minded and uninhibited then the two of you will not last a very long time and vice versa. The same also goes for if you are a person that likes to have sex several times a week whereas your mate is content and happy with just once a week and doesn’t really like it any more then that then that is going to be a problem as well. You know what you like and what you don’t so why waste time with someone who isn’t going to or willing to join you in those same likes or dislikes. But for the people who swear they can make it work they end up learning the hard way that you can not force compatibility.

There are a number of general requirements that help hold a relationship or marriage together such as communication, respect, compromise and sacrifice, creativity, compassion, generosity, trust, patience, energy, time, maturity, forgiveness, and the list goes on. But the thing is that if you don’t have ALL or at least MOST of those things then love doesn’t really do you any good. What good is loving someone you can’t communicate with, or feel compassion for, or even have respect for? The divorce rate isn’t nearly 50% because the two people don’t love each other. The divorce rate is that high because that love couldn’t hold them together when everything else is lacking. Love does not conquer all and I think that the sooner we all realize that then the closer we can get to actually having the type of relationship that we really want. A relationship where everything works and where the glue holding it together isn’t missing a single ingredient.

Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://freemynd.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Idea of Being In Love

When is the last time that you checked in on your relationship with yourself? One of the keys to a healthy relationship and a happy life is expressing love for yourself first. A lot of us, women in particular, are so concerned with finding love from someone else and wanting someone to be in love with us that I think we’ve forgotten that loving ourselves can be enough. That maybe we should be in love with ourselves first before we put all of our focus on having someone else fall in love with us. After all, how can you ever expect someone else to love you unconditionally if you can’t love yourself unconditionally just the way you are? When it comes to the idea of falling in love, don’t be afraid to fall in love with yourself.

Your relationship with yourself is the central relationship in your life from which all other relationships around you are formed. It should be the most powerful relationship that you ever have. Loving yourself is a prerequisite to creating a successful and authentic union with other people. At the heart of all the elements that make up your life experience, whether it is with family, friends, romantic relationships, or professional relationships, is you. You can’t expect to have a good relationship with others if the depth and quality of the relationship that you have with yourself is not a good one. If you desire to better the relationships that you have with the people in your life then you must first learn to love, honor, and cherish yourself as the truly precious human being that you are.

At its core, loving yourself simply means believing in your own self-worth and taking care of yourself; mind, body, heart and soul. Only when you have successfully learned to love the “whole you” and master taking care of your own needs, can you know how to extend that same attention and love to others. To become completely okay with you and nurture the relationship that you have with yourself you have to be able to fully appreciate yourself. Truly fall in love with who you are now, as well as who you have been in the past and who you can be in the future. You can not truly love yourself unconditionally if you are constantly dwelling on the mistakes of your past instead of embracing them as the life lessons that they are. Loving yourself is the best way to learn how to effectively love others.

The place within you that generates self-love is the exact same place that attracts authentic love from others. Keeping your relationship with you in tact means knowing that you are worthy of the best that this life has to offer you. It is maintaining the treatment of royalty to yourself because you know that you are royalty. The relationship that you have with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships that you will have surrounding you. You tend to attract people who treat you the way that you allow them to but if you think about it the way that you allow others to treat you is most likely the way that you treat yourself. Women need to stop focusing so much on trying to be in love with someone else and making it seem as though if they are not involved that their life is not as good as it should be. Your life is what you make it and our every hope and dream for our lives should not hinge on whether we are involved in a romantic relationship or not. If you think about it you are in a constant relationship-with you. Make it a good, life-long relationship and even as important, make it a strong powerful relationship because nobody can ever love YOU as good as YOU can.

Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date To Be Announced)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter