Bear Blog question challenge
I'm a bit late to the question challenge posed by Ava. I just arrived back from a 7 day hike up the Wild Coast of South Africa, which was beautiful, relaxing, and a great way to usher in the new year.
On arriving back I noticed a sharp increase in signups on Bear (new year; new blog!) and had to do some infrastructural work and house-keeping. I apologise to everyone who had timeout issues over the first week of January. This has been resolved and I have auto-scalers in place to prevent timeouts from happening in the future.
Before I get into the questions, I'd like to give a shout-out to both Kev Quirk and Manu. I follow both of their RSS feeds and was pleasantly surprised to see the Bear Blog question challenge on their blogs, despite being off-platform. It's been so interesting and lovely reading about everyone's blogging journeys.
Let's do this!
1. Why did you make a blog in the first place?
I've been blogging in some form or another since about 2014 (10 years!). Most of my early posts were your standard coming-of-age pieces. As most young people do, I felt like I was seeing reality and my place in the universe for the first time and needed an outlet for these deep thoughts. Those posts are lost to time, which I'm both glad—but also a little sad—about.
Later blogging became a way to share my experiences building delightful tools for the internet, as well as random tangents about air-powered vehicles, traffic circles, and other oddities. I found that by exploring a topic in-depth and then writing about it, it solidified my understanding of the topic. It allowed me to critique my own opinions and reason about the subject more holistically. In many ways, blogging helped me learn about the world around me, and retain that information (hopefully long-term).
2. Why did you choose Bear Blog?
This is a funny question for me, since I'm the creator of the platform. But in a way it's a good question because I chose Bear Blog the most. I'd tried all of the other platforms, from self-hosting pure HTML, to Jekyll, to Hugo. I'd signed up for Ghost and Wordpress, and many more that each had something good, but were never quite right. Bear is my attempt to take all of the great platform choices, distill them down, and discard the unnecessary. Design by subtraction, if you will.
I was just very lucky that so many people resonated with my opinions. Bear wouldn't be what it is without you all.
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
I guess I answered this in the previous question. But yes. I've been around the block.
4. Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?
I generally write my first draft in Apple Notes then transcribe it to the Bear Blog editor when it's in roughly the correct shape. I'm generally not a fan of proprietary editors that try to do too much, and Apple Notes works as expected, is free (assuming you've bought into the ecosystem), and syncs between my devices.
I used to use iA writer, but just naturally found myself using Apple Notes, since it's also where I take all kinds of other notes and keep my work log.
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
I rarely feel very inspired to write. Instead I feel inspired by ideas and thoughts. Most of the time writing is difficult and requires some inertia to get going, especially if I've lost writing momentum.
If I'm to be incredibly reductive, there are two kinds of writers: One kind can't help but write. Words flow from them into the world. The other kind pull words into the world, kicking and screaming. Like getting out of bed too early after a late night.
I'm sometimes one, and sometimes the other. Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's hard. What I aspire to, though, is to become the kind of writer who shows up regardless. The kind of writer that doesn't rely on the fleetingness of motivation. I find taking a long walk helps.
6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I generally outline a post in my head or in my notes and let the idea gestate. While I'm driving or taking a walk, or in the shower, the post kinda fleshes itself out, and I keep adding to the notes. Then (when inspiration strikes, but see question 5) I sit down and write a rough first draft. I don't edit or even look at the first draft again until the next day, where I re-read and edit it with fresh eyes before publishing.
In this way my writing process is broken down into 3 phases, usually on 3 different days:
- Ideation
- Writing
- Editing
This isn't prescriptive, by any means. It's just what works for me.
7. Your favourite post on your blog?
There are some posts I'm certainly more proud of than others. The one that I feel has captured me very well is My product is my garden. However, if I can break with the rules and add another post that is more of a short story, it would be The Gods of Toil.
I find that there's generally a negative correlation between posts that I'm very proud of, and the number of reads and upvotes it gets. My most recent post was a rant about me having to upgrade my iPhone. It has become one of my most-read posts, and I understand that it resonated with a lot of people. But I'm significantly more proud of my post on building a better ranking algorithm for Bear. I guess there's a larger subset of people who are unhappy with the state of smartphones than people who are interested in ranking algorithms. So be it.
8. Any future plans for your blog?
The style and structure of my blog will likely remain as it is for the foreseeable future. I love the simplicity and legibility of it, but it also acts as the "Example blog" of Bear, so I feel it needs to show the underlying structure of the platform without any embellishments. I have, however, enjoyed seeing the creativity on so many people's blogs and have felt the pull to do similarly. Bear has explicitly been built so that it's simple to use, but also has incredible depth if you don't mind getting your hands dirty.
That being said, the content on my blog is likely to shift this year. Since the platform itself is stable and mostly feature-complete, I'm going to be spending a lot more time doing interesting things and writing about them. I have a backlog of posts I've been meaning to get to, and there's no time like the present.
To end off
I don't think I've been as excited about a year as I am for 2025. I feel a crackling of magic in the air.
To all of you, happy new year! May it be filled with interesting work, adventures, good food, and good people.
