This apparently started on Bear blog, a minimalist blogging service, where people answer questions about…blogging!
I’m not going to tag anyone or anything, but I love lists and answering questions makes a list, so here are my answers to the Blog Question Challenge.
Why did you make the blog in the first place?
This blog, creolened.com, was started on February 2, 20025– nearly 20 years ago! The first post is here: Bloggity blog blog
That short post doesn’t explain why I started the blog, but does suggest blogging was a hot thing in 2005, and I wanted in on it. Also, I like writing and rambling, so a blog seemed like a good place to do this. Journals and diaries are fine (I keep a daily journal now and have kept journals in the past as well), but there’s something about having my thoughts hanging out in public that makes me write a bit differently. I have a voice and it comes through regardless of whether I am writing just for myself (diary) or not (blog), but there’s a little extra zestiness when I write on the blog. I know others can see what I’ve written. It adds pressure to at least check for typos. And maybe organize my thoughts and make them occasionally interesting.
Also, I find writing about something, then referencing back to it years later is just neat. And handy.
Mostly, I started the blog because I like to write and have things to say. Those things are not always serious or well-articulated, but that’s why this blog never had a particular angle. It’s just me rambling.
Why did you choose bear blog?
Sorry, bear, I tried you and liked you, but you are too minimalist for me, because I am a weirdo and spend too much time playing around with formatting and images and junk like that. It’s a fine service, though! Hopefully the person running it isn’t a monster. There is a weirdly large number of monsters on the internet these days.
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
WordPress was my first blogging platform. Prior to it, I posted on various forums, and had a gaming website I updated by editing the HTML files, then seeing how things looked in Firefox 1.5 or something.
I have more recently dabbled/tested many different blogging platforms. Search this blog to find my thoughts on them!
Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?
It varies, but most of the time I write using the built-in WordPress editor. I occasionally use the Classic block editor when the block system, uh, blocks me from doing what I want.
Sometimes I write in other apps and then copy and paste over. For a time I thought of doing this permanently, so I’d always have a local copy of my stuff, but it just seemed like more work than I wanted. Other programs I’ve used to write for this blog:
- Notepad
- Notepad++
- iA Writer
- Ulysses
- Obsidian
- Maybe Microsoft Word at some point?
- Probably a few others I’m forgetting
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Never! Inspiration comes and goes, and I have yet to observe any particular pattern to it. Sometimes I can get up and write a long, lovingly handcrafted post first thing in the morning, other times I scramble to find a cat pic to post at 11:30 p.m. It just depends.
I will note that when I am feeling down, I rarely feel inspired to write, so I reject the idea that one must suffer for one’s art (or writing). On the other hand, writing about weird or bad things that have happened to me is something I enjoy doing after the fact, when I’m at least one step removed (see my recent ER visit for an example).
Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I publish immediately, baby. Sometimes I will look over the post for typos or awkward phrasing just before hitting Publish or just after it goes live. If I come across the same in an old post, I fix these things.
If a post is especially long or complex, I will sometimes save it as a draft, then come back later to finish it, but most drafts tend to go to the place where drafts die. Then they die.
Your favourite post on your blog?
At the time of writing this, I have 5,462 posts, so trying to pick a favourite one is pretty much impossible. I used to maintain a small list of favourites, but tossed it aside at some point.
Rather than specific favourites, I’ll list a few general themes:
- Some of the writing prompt posts are entertaining, and not bad when you consider they are written in the moment, without any editing afterwards.
- Some of my own (silly) writing prompt lists still amuse me. Others don’t, so this is definitely “your mileage may vary” kind of thing.
- Birding posts with actual photos are nice. I’ve fallen out of the habit of posting the photos, but I’ve still got some decent ones up for viewing.
- Some of my art is okay! These are found under Creative.
- I tried to learn how to swim in 2009. It didn’t go well, but was kind of funny.
- And more. I have a billion tags because I am a chronic tag abuser, but some of the odder ones sometimes have cute/interesting posts to go with them.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
I have redesigned my blog multiple times through the years and will no doubt do so again. Right now it is sporting a more minimal look, with little colour. I’ll probably change that again sometime.
The biggest upcoming change will be moving to a different platform. I am still thinking through this (and have documented the process here on this blog, to go all meta). I no longer have confidence in the WordPress platform, and it’s really more than I need. I am very used to it, though, so moving to something new is going to have a learning curve, accepting certain compromises and other stuff. But I feel I should, and the time to do so is pretty much now.
And that’s about it. Here are some other people who also took up this challenge:
- Adactio
- Rob Roland
- Keenan
- HeyDingus
- Brandon’s Journal
- Robb Knight
- MacManX
- Koehn
- writingrobin
- therivercrow
- Kev Quirk
- And check Ava’s entry, which also includes a ton of responses from others.
