Entering the blogging spotlight
I’ve written many times about my blogging doubts. Somehow, hitting the publish button anyway has still felt quite alright. Not always great, but good enough to go through with it.
I totally understand that fear, though. Creating something on your own and showing it to the whole world.
What will people think? The answer is, nowhere near as much as you think they will. Still, when that voice in the head enters the stage, truths like that or “just be yourself” and “don’t worry about others” advice are not much help.
But there’s something else worth trying if you feel stuck. You can blog behind the scenes, then open the curtain a little, and finally step into the spotlight when you feel ready. Bear is a great platform for this.
One of its many strengths is how seamless it is to turn a page into a blog post, or the other way around. Just include the is_page: true attribute, and it will be treated as a page. And if you don’t want it to appear in the Bear discovery feed, simply use make_discoverable: false.
So if you want to take it slow, publish your post as a page that’s not discoverable. It won’t show in the posts list on your blog, it won’t appear on the Bear discovery page, and it won’t show up in your RSS feed.
But most importantly, you’ve published your first piece of text to the world. Yay. Go you 🙌
Ready for the next step? After a day or two, or whenever you feel comfortable, remove the make_discoverable: false part. Now your page will be visible in the discovery feed, but most people still won’t see it since it’s already “old”.
Still feeling good? Great. Remove the is_page: true part like a bandage you don’t need anymore.
Now it will appear in the list of posts on your blog, along with the original publishing date, and in the RSS feed. A nice bonus is that the link stays the same, unlike on many platforms, so nothing breaks along the way.
You’re now in the blogging spotlight. Congrats.