Bear Blog challenge
As I get started blogging here on Bear, and starting to discover who else is around, I noticed some responses to Ava's Bear Blog Challenge. Wanting some content buffer to get a blog started, I figured I should jump in, too.
1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?
I covered some of this in A fresh start. I know a lot of folks are abandoning their prior social graphs for any number of reasons. I'm not cutting any off outright right now, but seeing folks talk about it made me remember the days of decades ago1 when we all just blogged. An apropos turn of phrase about having your own little corner of the Internet pushed me over the edge, and here I am.
2. Why did you choose Bear Blog?
The last few times (see Q3 below) I tried to get back into blogging had come after I had learned of the magic of Markdown as an ideal way to write and format for the web, and actively looked for blogging engines that would support it. A combination of web, chatbot, and Reddit searches led me to give this one a try, and it seemed to be the friendliest, simplest, and least expensive way to get started.2
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Many. Most frequently on WordPress, but I've also been on Tumblr, Micro.blog, Moveable Type (when it was still free)... Hell, I even had a LiveJournal.
4. Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?
Being post #2, so far I've been writing in the editor. Noticing, however, how easy it is to accidentally navigate away from the editor page has me wondering if composing in some other text editor might not be a bad idea, though the [Save as draft] button does a decent job of preserving... well, drafts.
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
Too early to tell yet. I was looking for this to be mostly a link blog, so, "whenever I find a neat link to share" is the simplest answer. Stay tuned as to how this will manifest itself.
6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
Again, too early to tell. Posts #1 and #2 went up pretty quickly.
7. Your favorite post on your blog?
8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
Letting the paint dry and the concrete cure.
(Seriously, though, as I'm re-learning Markdown and CSS, I may yet tweak a few design elements before I'm fully comfortable with the site.)