Hello out there in Blog-land! Welcome back to the Compass Rose Queen, where we celebrate the journeys of women (sometimes historical, others fictional, and sometimes my own journeys). Sorry it’s been so long! It’s not that I haven’t had ideas of things to write about. I’ve been finding lots of stories of amazing journeys of women that I would love to share with you. But a couple things have kept me from writing. Only one of them is a good excuse, but I’ll discuss them both here. Keep reading to get to the good stuff (actual writing about the journeys of women, including links to things I’ve written lately, and an announcement about my day job/career if you haven’t already seen it on Facebook!).
My first excuse category is about the writing process. I have too many ideas and don’t know where to start. Whose story is most compelling or timely? And then, how do I go about not just sounding like a Wikipedia page and insulting your intelligence because you could look her up yourself? If I have a book about her, how do I find the time to read it? Yeah, yeah, I told you they’re terrible excuses! But that’s what’s been going through my easily distracted and discouraged brain.
My second (and much more fun) excuse is that I have been writing for other forums. I’m on the blog team for my church, so about once every couple months I write an article for it. Also, I’ve had two written pieces published in the new online literary magazine Illumine: Collective Light. The last things I wrote for each of these forums were both focused on the journeys of women (one is about a friend of mine, and the other is my own personal journey of discovery), so I’ll post links to those here.
The first piece I’ll include is my blog post for church about a young friend of mine that I met while visiting my old church camp five years ago. She is an inspiration to me! The theme we were all writing about was adventures with God, and I thought of her because her camp name was Adventure when I met her! So yeah, not to be punny, but I wrote about Adventure in more ways than one. http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/7/19adventuringwithgod-jj
The second piece is my latest work for Illumine: Collective Light, and is an unusual format for me. I normally write prose, either fiction or nonfiction. I haven’t written anything resembling poetry since I wrote a prayer/song years ago, and I certainly haven’t had any training in it. So please don’t judge it for any literary merit. Also, I have mixed feelings about sharing it, because I’m afraid it can come off like I’m bragging about the places I’ve been. That was not my intention when writing it. The theme was “Wonder” and when I sat down to write about the concept of wonder in my life, this is what came out. It’s about my journey of discovering that it’s not the amazing places but the people in our lives that are the best wonder of the world. It’s dedicated to a former student who was killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul last year, just one of the wonderful people I’ve met in my life’s journey. https://illumine.collectivelight.org/volume-3-wonder/what-a-wonderful-world/
That’s probably enough for one post for now. You’ll have to wait for the next post to find out about at least one of the awesome famous/historical women I’ve discovered. But I’ll post below links to some of my other articles and blog posts in case you want to read more (and proof that I have been writing something!). Oh, and I promised you a job update! Most of you know that I’ve been teaching for the last several years at a military-style charter school. Well, I will miss it, but it was time for me to move on, so I’m happy to announce that I was recently hired to teach at a private school for students with special needs. I’m excited for this next step in my career! Many thanks to those who supported me through this, by being a reference, giving me advice, praying for me, and other ways.
Happy journeying!
My other submission to Illumine: Collective Light: https://illumine.collectivelight.org/volume-2-stillness/stillness-that-elusive-gift/
Other blog posts I’ve written for my church:
http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/5/24perpetualcreativity-jj
http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/3/22beautyfromsuffering-jj
http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/2/1ahamoment-jj
http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2018/10/19tension-jj
http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2018/6/15interruptible-jj
The Compass Rose Queen 
Hi Jess! I’m looking forward to reading all your links!