Author Archives: compassrosequeen

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Sitting on the sofa (what my grandma called it, although mine is a tiny wicker loveseat) and thinking about what I should be doing instead of actually doing something.

Thinking about where to go from here:

In my career- apply for teaching jobs for 2012-2013, or settle in to my current field and community and feel like I have a place to call home for a while? I want to teach, but will volunteering with my local youth group fulfill that desire for a while? I don’t want to live where I do now for forever, but I’d love to stay for a while and build relationships in my community.

In my writing- I finished the first draft of Serenity’s Cave. (Woohoo! I wrote a novel!)  Now it’s time to rewrite. What do I do with the plot? The characters? They’re all a bit directionless. So now I’m a bit directionless. Hmm. Hopefully a writer’s conference a week from now will help get me unstuck.

In my blog- I’ve never found a rhythm for regularly writing on this blog. I love the Compass Rose Queen, but its original premise is a bit too much for regular writing. The only time I’ve written regularly was when I was in China. So where do I take it?

For now, I’ll just address the last one.

I’ve decided that the Compass Rose Queen is about any adventure, not just epic journeys. I’ll still do the epic journeys of women column, but not frequently. (I’m currently reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and you can bet Eliza’s journey to freedom will be on here somewhere!) From here on out, I’ll write about the adventures of life, however random. Things I do. Things I see people doing. Things I dream about doing. Or things I should be doing (that my moral compasses show me). And I’ll try to keep my posts a bit shorter than usual. (We’ll see how long that lasts!)

So enough couch-sitting. I’m going to start doing again. See you in my future adventures!

(Disclaimer: I did sit on the couch while writing this…)

As Valentine’s week draws to a close, I realize I’ve seen about 30 commercials for diamond jewelry in the past few weeks. We can probably all sing or say the famous jingles or taglines from them. No, I didn’t receive any diamonds this year on Valentine’s Day. But I am blessed with two wonderful writing buddies, Nicole and Caitlin. Together, we make up “The Diamond Girls.” And we’ve been on quite a journey together.

The Diamond Girls met a few years ago at an OCW summer writing conference. Caitlin and I (and another fellow OCW member) were roommates in a small cabin. She and I and Nicole became instant friends. One evening at dinner, an older lady had us stay after the meal for a moment, saying she had something for us. She dug in her purse, and pulled out three large plastic craft diamonds. Then she said that God told her to give them to us, because we were like diamonds. He was shaping us into something pure and beautiful. Later in the week, she walked by, and said, “There’s my Diamond Girls!” And so we were.

That was the hottest week I’ve experienced this side of Kentucky and China. I think that bound us together (those who sweat together, write together) even more. We shared our hopes and dreams together, of writing, life, and love.

Since that conference, the Diamond Girls have endeavored to get together whenever we could. We weren’t critique partners; we each had our own critique groups for that (mine was the wonderful West Salem Writer’s Group- I love you ladies!) We just shared our lives together. The girls prayed with me when my marriage crumbled. We prayed for each other’s job situations. At first, we lived within 45 minutes of each other in the north Willamette Valley. But then Caitlin moved to Texas for a great job opportunity. We still managed to get together, though, to encourage each other in our writing as well as our lives. When I was in China last fall, struggling with the moral dilemma of staying or coming home, the Diamond Girls got on Skype together and encouraged me.

Now the Diamond Girls are far apart, but still together in our hearts. Nicole has an agent and is a social media coordinator for the University of Western States. Caitlin is a columnist and a social media manager in Texas. I work for a social services office in small town in southern Oregon, where I get to hear people’s stories, and I have evenings and weekends free to write. And I’m finally almost done with my first draft of a novel (the other Diamond Girls are way ahead of me! Read about their books on their blogs).

Watch for Nicole and Caitlin’s novels to be published. They’re fantastic writers! Nicole writes WWII-era historical fiction, and Caitlin writes contemporary fiction. The Diamond Girls decided we would each write a blog about how we met and how far we’ve come since then, and then link to each others’ blogs. I’ll include these here, but they’re also in my blogroll.
http://www.nicolemillerbooks.com/2012/02/23/of-clear-plastic-and-chance-encounters/
http://www.caitlinmuir.com/the-story-of-a-girl-and-her-diamonds/

In addition to the Diamond Girls, I have some other close writing friends as well. I met Haylie while we worked together at a middle school. She lives in southern California now, but she’s my best accountability partner for writing. She’s written three novels so far, and her stories are adventurous and fun.

The Diamond Girls

My aforementioned writer’s group in Salem also has brilliantly talented writers: Tracy & Debby, who invited me to it, Diana, and Bev (and for a while Haylie). We had a wide range of fiction writing to critique: historical of three different eras, sci-fi, and fantasy. All of them have either been published, received awards, or had agents/editors interested in their writing. What a group for me to learn from! And they weren’t just a critique group- we’ve encouraged each other and prayed through the toughest of times. Besides all these, I also have many other talented friends in OCW that have been published. I’ve been inspired by the writings of Jill Williamson, Hillary Manton Lodge, Leslie Gould, and so many others. Many of their blog links can be found in my blogroll. I want to say a special thanks to Christina Tarabochia-Berry (author of Familiar Stranger) and Mary Hake (President of OCW) for their encouragement during my divorce.

So this Valentine’s week, I celebrate the Diamond Girls and the rest of my amazing writer friends. Because they, along with my other wonderful writer friends, are a writing girl’s best friends on the journey to being an author.

Just a quick note to you all (or y’all depending on what part of the country you’re in) to say Happy New Year! I am still writing (and planning to get back to normal Compass Rose Queen posts about the journeys of women), but I do not as of yet have internet access at home. So my wifi time consists of quickly checking e-mail and Facebook while eating an ice cream cone at McDonald’s.

This new year will hopefully be a little calmer than last year, so I should be able to start posting regularly soon. And you never know- maybe in the fall I’ll be teaching internationally again! And get to post fun adventures of my own again.

So may 2012 be a year of new hope, dreams, and possibilities for you. I know it is for me!

I got a job! And moved to Southern Oregon. It’s beautiful down here! Mountains galore.

My new job is working as a receptionist/case aide for the Department of Human Services office in Canyonville. Renting options were limited, so I live in nearby Myrtle Creek. My new small-town life is a far cry from 15 million people Shenzhen! I miss it there, though.

NaNoWriMo- I didn’t complete the 50,000 words, but I did get to 35,000 words and 125 pages. More than I’ve ever done before on a book, so I consider NaNoWriMo a success for me! It accomplished its purpose.

Tomorrow is the official start of NaNoWriMo 2011. And I’m going to do it this year! At the end of November, I will have a (very rough) draft of a novel. I’m very excited!

Since I will be focusing my writing energy on the novel, I probably won’t blog much (yeah, I know, I don’t blog much as it is). But I’ll try to keep you posted on my job situation. I’ve been offered a part-time job that would fit with substitute teaching, and I’ve had two interviews for a good full-time job. So we’ll see! Either way, I should be working soon! Thank God, quite literally.

This past month has been difficult for me emotionally. The disappointment of coming home early from China, being stuck in my hometown with no job, and bank account issues to deal with threw me for a loop-de-loop on an emotional roller coaster. Many thanks to the friends who have been encouraging me through this time.

I am happy to report- I’m out of the dark valley I felt I was stuck in. I’ve been feeling good about life for over a week now, and feeling better and better each day. And as soon as I finally was content with my situation, pushed through the sadness to get to joy, and fully trusted God with it, things started happening! My bank account issues got resolved, I got an unemployment check, and best of all- I started getting job interviews! I have a total of five this week. Hallelujah!

Which leads me to the literal aspect of getting out of the valley, the Willamette Valley, at least. Yesterday I drove to Roseburg for an interview for a job in Canyonville (Southern Oregon). It was the most perfect autumn day: cold, crisp air, cloudless blue skies, and fall foliage. I took a scenic drive from Canyonville on a road that follows an old wagon trail, then splits off to go up high into the mountains, and meets up with the highway from Roseburg to Crater Lake. Breathtaking. I was kicking myself for not taking my camera, but content to just soak in the scenery and not worry about capturing it on film.

It was the first day that I really felt grateful to be in Oregon right now (not counting getting to spend time with family and friends). Up in the mountains, I feel like I can breathe better, think better, pray better.

I ended the day by taking myself out to eat at a riverside inn. Salmon chowder and the best grilled cheese sandwich ever left me in no mood to feel sorry for myself anymore.

Now I just have the moral dilemma (if I get offered the jobs I’m applying for): do I take a good government office job with solid pay and benefits, or do I take a fun minimum wage night job and be a substitute teacher by day, which would give me experience in the career I’ve planned on doing my whole life? It’s a tough call. But I’m thankful for the chance to have the options. I’ll let y’all know what happens!

I’ve been “home” for a few weeks now. Home at the moment being my hometown area, staying with parents. My current job is to surf the web for jobs, and fill out online applications complete with uploaded documents. What happened to driving around asking for job applications and handing out resumes? It fit my ADHD personality much better.

Nowadays, job hunting means staring at a computer screen all day. Job hunting can be depressing on it’s own, but now it makes my eyes glazed over. I try to get out every so often, but I’m usually exhausted after filling out one application (which usually takes me a couple hours by the time I get done filling out my crazy job history and education and references, answering their questions, and writing the required cover letter). But I figure with being able to search online and send applications in directly and not driving around, I’m probably getting more done than I would have before. So that makes me hopeful.

Searching for jobs online is it’s own daunting task, though. It’s like a jungle. So thick with vegetation that you can’t see the path. It’s overwhelming how many jobs you find, and then narrowing them down to the ones I’m actually qualified for (which is part of the depressing part). I’m really not qualified to do much. So I’m branching out to things I wouldn’t have thought of before. Which is its own adventure. I’ve applied for some random jobs and some good ones in random places. We’ll see what happens!

The job hunt can have its share of ups and downs. Especially since there’s nothing specific to look forward to or to feel purposeful about. So now I’m looking at a couple things to keep me going. One is volunteering. I’m not sure where or what I’ll go for, but I think giving back to the community will help immensely. The other is joining NaNoWriMo. This is where wannabe novelist go crazy for the month of November (unless they were already crazy before) and try to write a novel in only that amount of time. I think that will give me something to look forward to. I wanted to do it the past two years, but was in grad school then. So what better time than when I have no job? Hopefully I’ll have a job by then, and can settle into it quickly so I can spend my free time writing.

So here I go. The next phase of my career journey. A random job (hopefully soon!) and a mad dash for a finished novel. Wish me luck! And let me know if you need a volunteer!

p.s. One of these days I’ll give some final thoughts on my time in China. And hopefully that promised post all about food! With pics, of course!