Oh, hello everybody! ✨

Oh hi.

It's been a minute.

Opening up Blogger again this morning was wild. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I actively blogged here?

4 years. It's been 4 years.

Honestly? It felt good to be here, not entirely unlike a childhood home. Scrolling through and looking around, I felt the same old excitement to write a post, and it felt good. The interface is still familiar. Oh look! There are even some old drafts in here. I wonder what thoughts I had that I didn't publish--Oh. Right. 21-year-old Bethany was going through it. I'm glad to report that I'm now free of many of the health and life issues I was navigating back then. I'm 25 now, and life is very different from what I expected it to be at 21.

How have you been? Some of you made the transition over to my Instagram and newsletter and such, but how about the rest of you? What have you been up to in the last 4 years?

I've been up to a lot of things, actually.

    

I published the first book in my trilogy, Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas, back in 2021, just a few months before I took a step back from this blog. In December of the following year, World Saving and Other Disasters followed. The third book took longer than expected, as I had to overhaul the plot twice and took an extended break in the middle to draft an entirely different book, but I finally published the finale (DragonFire and Other Nonsense) in April of this year.

My books are beautiful. Book one makes people laugh. The middle book digs deep. The finale makes many people cry, myself included. God is so good. I teared up so many times across the month of April, because how is it possible that I wrote not one but three wonderful books that I could be proud of, and write an ending that I loved so dearly? How is it possible that I actually finished that leg of the race and finished strong?

God is very good indeed.

With my first proof copy of DFON. Spot the tears.

More has happened than just that. I totaled my faithful car last year, in an accident that I really shouldn't have walked away from, and was massively blessed by a host of good friends as they looked after me in the hot sun and got me a place to stay for the night and a ride (for I was a full 3 states from home).

    

I also gained a sister-in-law, and this year, a wiggly niece who just learned how to laugh. I've attended at least a dozen weddings for friends, cousins, and friends who became cousins. God has moved in mysterious ways that surprise me every time.

Through it all, here I am, still lucky enough to be writing books. I'm working on a couple right now. Did you hear? I'm in the middle of plotting out a cozy-ish high fantasy, and I just published a short story collection this week. That's not even counting the book I'm editing (concerning skyboats and catfolk) or the two other books I have cooking on my mind's back burner. One is related to the published trilogy; you'll love it.

  

I still blog, too, but on a different platform now. If you liked my posts here, you're sure to enjoy what I'm doing now. I publish monthly posts and snippets to my mailing list, and occasionally I'll post a video essay to YouTube, something I never do often enough but love dearly.

Now, does this mean I'll be back to posting regularly on the Scribbled Fiction blog? No. I moved on from this blog a long time ago, but I never actually made any statement about my departure. At the time, writing blog posts was just too overwhelming to continue, and a short break quickly turned into many years without touching this blog. This is goodbye to the blog, but it doesn't have to be goodbye to you. Some of my people have followed me over to other platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, email. . . if you remember me and want to keep me around, I'd be so happy to have you.

But if this is where we say goodbye, thank you for being a part of my life and my writing. The time we've been together has been a gift. God bless you on the race you run.

Soli deo gloria.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)