Bear Question Challenge
This was going around at the beginning of last year, but I just found it and it looked fun, as well as being a good way to talk about how I approach this blog and plans for it in the future. Ava came up with this blog-centric survey for Bear Blog users to do, and here are my answers!
1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?
I've been blogging online for practically as long as I can remember, starting with LiveJournal, then moving to Dreamwidth, and eventually settling on Wordpress for a while until I grew tired of its clunkiness, bloatedness, and its CEO.
I enjoy writing, and it's nice to have a cathartic outlet where I can write about whatever I want without worrying much about self-editing. I've always viewed blogs as casual places where people can be themselves. They're third places on the internet, and I like that about them.
2. Why did you choose Bearblog?
I liked its simplicity, especially in comparison to Wordpress. I can't remember specifically how I found Bear, but I was actively looking for alternatives to Wordpress at the time.
I also like that it allows for customization while maintaining its simplicity, and the community aspect is nice. Most of the time I hide my "toasts," but it's nice to have that option if I want to engage with the community, and I enjoy perusing the Discovery page.
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Yep! As mentioned above, I started with LiveJournal, spent a little time on Dreamwidth, and then moved to Wordpress for quite a while.
4. Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?
Almost always directly in the editor, but I copy+paste into Notepad before I click Publish just in case I lose my draft, which has happened before! Only once so far, but it was after writing quite a long post.
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
Honestly, it's random. I've gone several weeks without feeling like it, but I always come back to it. And then some days it seems like everything inspires me and all I want to do is write.
6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I write spontaneously and manually publish every post. Nothing is scheduled or written in advance. I'll get ideas in advance and mull them over, but I always just go with the flow when writing and then immediately publish. I do go back and edit my posts sometimes if I read through them and something feels off.
7. Your favorite post on your blog?
This is a hard question because my blog is quite a personal one. I'm not a dev or an artist. I don't have much to say that's interesting or profound. If I ever do, it's usually about video games and I save it for freelance pitches.
I have a popular post about being in my 30s, but it's not my favorite. I've perhaps made some good observations about video games when discussing The Good Life and Before the Green Moon, but those aren't my favorites either.
I think my favorite posts are all the silly mundane ones where I ramble about my life, because that's what this blog is for me, and that's why I love it.
8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
I like my current layout, but I'm itching to play around with it and come up with a redesign. I enjoyed working on the one I had up last autumn, and I'll probably bring it back around this fall because I love it so much. I want to do something else in the meantime, though. I just need to think on it.
Aside from that, maybe just more organization and figuring out what exactly I want the extra pages to be. I don't use the Indie Game Quick Reviews page anymore because I just write about indie games on my blog, but I like having it around. I just need to figure out a better way to integrate it. Little things like that. Housekeeping, sweeping up dust and such.