Sal's

Bear Blog Questions Challenge

Following:

I'll bite!

Why did you make the blog in the first place?

I think this is my seventh blog! I keep coming back to blogging for a few reasons.

I enjoy the writing process. It helps me think and learn.

I’ve loved computers and tech since I was a kid. It’s sad to see all the harm they’ve caused via social media, addiction, etc. But in contrast to that, personal blogging feels like a wholesome way to use computers and the internet. I enjoy participating in a community of other bloggers who are in it with similar intentions. We each have our little sandboxes out in near-infinite vastness of the internet. With courage and vulnerability, we open them up to each other and the world. In so doing, we keep alive a spirit of the internet that otherwise might be snuffed out. I like feeling that I’m contributing to that.

Why did you choose Bear Blog?

Simplicity, Markdown, and Bear’s discovery feed.

Bear is simple. The default CSS themes are totally fine. It's got all the core features that I've built for myself several times over the years. There's no fuss. This simplicity saves me lots of time, and time is invaluable.

Markdown lets me keep my blog posts and my private journal together in Obsidian. Together, they give me a tidy timeline of my thoughts and writing efforts that I can preserve in one place forever. That’s cool!

Finally, the discovery feed makes it likely that at least a few people will see my blog from time to time. That’s enough readership to motivate me to take it seriously and to feel like I’m part of a community.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yep!
Squarespace, GitHub Pages, a Hugo site hosted by Netlify, a Gemini log (or "gemlog"), and a Gopher log (or "phlog").

Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

I write in Obsidian, sometimes hopping back and forth between it and iA Writer. Then I just copy and paste into Bear when I'm done.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

When I have the least time to, of course. 😉 At night when I’m trying to fall asleep, in the shower, right when I’m about to walk into a meeting. I capture the ideas in Things for later.

I'm a morning person, so I try to knock out an entry first thing in the morning before things get busy.

Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I try to publish as quickly as possible. I hate having a post that's nearly done but unpublished. It nags at me, distracting me from the rest of my life.

I do one or two rounds of editing and then publish. I then do one or two more rounds of editing on the published post.

Your favorite post on your blog?

I don't think any of my posts are all that good. I'm still just getting warmed up here! But if I have to pick one, maybe the short and sweet post about iOS background sounds.

I love finding this sort of tip from other people. I was genuinely surprised to discover this feature, and I hope my post will help someone out.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?

I'd love to geek out on the design of my blog. I'm just using the default Bear Blog scheme right now. But I'm also trying very hard not to geek out on the design of my blog. It's so time consuming, and I'm not naturally good at it. Maybe someday if I have a free weekend to throw at it.

Once I get a critical mass of posts, I might add some tags and a basic tag index.

But really I just want to write. I find the rest of the stuff to be a distraction. That's a big part of why I think Bear Blog is great!

Edit: I’ll walk this back just a bit. Customizing one’s site is a cool way to contribute to the spirit of the internet I mentioned above. For that reason, and for fun, I do hope to customize the look and feel of my site someday.