The Simmering Mind

Hi!  Thank you for coming by my reinvented blog.

I’m not sure what I have to say for myself – the only long-running blog I ever had was a private blog when I was 16, and all blogging attempts since have been short-lived.  I realize now that the reason this blog fell silent so quickly is because I was treating it like a limited outlet.  Because I am a speculative fiction writer and will eventually use this blog as my web base if I am published, I felt I could only post things relating to speculative fiction or I would bore my “audience”.  That’s difficult to maintain, because the school for writing fiction is real life!  In reality I don’t always have something to say about writing or books, either.  (And yet, everything in my real life relates back to my writing somehow.  I do have a “woman’s brain,” after all…everything is connected!)

So, although much of my writing here will still relate to fiction, this time I am going to blog about anything and everything that stirs me.  This may not be relevant to every reader, all the time, so if you follow me hoping to see a specific genre of posts, I hope you will forgive me for writing others too – and feel free to skim past any posts that don’t interest you.

I am also going to be bold and really share my thoughts, regularly.  In the past I shied away from hot button issues and important topics, like Christian living and musings on Scripture, because I feared I wasn’t enough of an “expert” to share on those kinds of topics.  But over the past year God has shown me He can spread His truth and bless His church even through those who are foolish, young, immature, or otherwise “unsuitable”.  He glorifies Himself in weakness!  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10.)  If He can use an inexpert muser like me to share something beautiful and meaningful with the world, I am thankful and delighted to be an instrument in His hand.  So here I intend to be vocal about the things God is teaching me in everyday life and in fiction, because I am grateful to Him and I hope He can bless others through my words.  I pray this does not come across as arrogant – please consider any “soapboxing” around here to be me preaching to myself, merely doing it out loud instead of in my head where it used to stay.  Truly, I’m not an “expert” in anything (well…maybe sandwich-making 😉 ).  I’m just a person thinking and learning and slowly gaining a better understanding of God and His world.

If you stay to hear more of my ramblings, you can expect to see posts about:

• Writing
• Speculative fiction
• Christianity, faith, the church, Scripture
• Worldviews and philosophy
• Books, movies, and TV
• Culture
• Womanhood
• Parenthood
• Food (not often…but…I do love food…)
• Social media
• My life
• And anything else that stirs up contemplations, here in my simmering mind!

I do hope you’ll stick around and share your thoughts too.  The more, the merrier!

— Bethany