Dear Tumblr,

It’s time that I just come out and say it. For all of the world to hear me shouting it from the pixelated rooftops. I love you! I love you and I will never leave you. Ever. When I first laid eyes on you back in January of 2008, I just knew we were meant to be together. Since, I’ve shared my life with you in so many ways. After all this time together, we still spend quality time nearly every day. You just make me want to give more, and more again.

I know you know that I… blog… in a lot of other places. Look, we never said this was exclusive and we both know I know about your millions of “users”. I just want you to know that what we have is special. It’s always you I turn to, not out of obligation, but out of love… to share the most authentic pieces of myself. Others might be more powerful, more complex… but with you it’s just: different.

You make me wish I were a developer so I could make you little trinkets of affection. When I’m with you, you ask so little effort from me. Even my friends like you. I encourage the ones who “don’t get blogging” to give you a roll in the sack because not only are you easy (sorry, but it’s true and everyone knows), but you introduce them to other “like minded individuals” to share their time with… A pretty cool bunch of people. It’s good when your friends can get along. Even some of my clients who are so hopeless that they couldn’t be expected to handle WordPress in even the most rudimentary context, can figure out how to make friends with your intuitive interface. Just another reason I am grateful that you are always so accommodating to my needs, allowing me to mold you to fit in with the rest of a design. (Admit it, CSS is the glue that holds us together…) Every time you update something, it’s new all over again. (I’m going to look past the whole “Tumblarity” thing and forgive and forget about the blogs you deleted… you made it right: and that took balls. I respect balls… and hey, no one and nothing is perfect. We’ve learned from our mistakes.)

I’ve made 3,449 posts (including this one), “liked” 707 posts, and made 1,296 new friends. With the passing of time you are like a fine wine, improving with age.

Happy Anniversary, love. To many more… la chaim!

True Love Forever & Always,

Affectionately Yours,

xoxo

Alana Joy

PS: You can buy the above logo on a t-shirt here for $15, and that’s not even a lot.

Blogging successfully requires you to be consistent.  You put a lot of work in behind the scenes to get your blog noticed, and if the people who find you and love what you have to say can’t count on you for new posts on a regular basis, they have no incentive to check back consistently: and your blog is soon forgotten. Sometimes you have an idea you are really excited about and the words flow easily and eagerly with very little editing needed when you’re done. Other times, you may find yourself staring resentfully at the blank screen in front of you, struggling to find a place to begin. It can be difficult after focusing on a days worth of busy work to get creative when all you really want to do is let your heavy eyelids win the battle.

Here is a list of fun websites I’ve found through my travels online that have both entertained and inspired me when I’ve hit a wall.

• One Word: Simple. You’ll see one word at the top of the page. You have 60 seconds to write about it. As soon as you click “go” the page will load with the cursor in place. Don’t think. Just write.
• Free Rice: Sharpen your vocabulary and do some good at the same time! For every word you get right 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program.
• 10 Universities offering free writing courses online: MIT, Perdue, and more!
• 501 Writing Prompts: An entire book on Scribd of a variety of writing prompts to get the juices flowing.
• StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon allows you to check off your areas of interest and shuffle through infinite websites that fall into those areas. Shuffle through video, too!

What helps you beat writers block?

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