Config.toml and markdown files are not filling properly

Doing the Hugo QuickStart using Hugo v0.20 with go1.8 installed on a Ubuntu 16.04.

Doing the tutorial located here:
Hugo QuickStart

For some reason my config.toml file always creates as a blank file and the the md files created by the following:

hugo new site bookshelf
cd bookshelf
hugo new post/good-to-great.md

Putting the information for baseURL in the config.toml file fixed the error it was giving me when trying to create the new post but the md file opens with no information, just:

+++
+++

No date, draft or title information in the file at all.

Any ideas what is going wrong here? Or is there an easy way to manually add the date/time in the right format if I have to do it that way?

I am baffled that I literally cannot get past step 2 in the Easiest tutorial without having problems.