How tumblr Can Help You as a Writer

There is always discussion on the internet, particularly among writers, about how bad the internet is. After all, how will you ever write 1,000 words today if you spend five minutes on Twitter? I've already argued that Twitter can help you revise, and now I want to talk about how another social networking site, tumblr, can help your writing. 

tumblr is often seen as the biggest time-waster of the social networking sites because, well, what do you do but scroll through a series of gifs and artistic photos? However, it is those images and ideas which can help you as a writer, as I will show in this post. 

tumblr remembers the details. Sometimes it's the smallest moments in books which have the greatest impact on us, the ones which make us go, "Yes, I've felt that or been that or done that, I know that." There are multiple tumblers dedicated to those moments. For ones specific to teenagers, try High School Hyena or Teenager Posts. For general ones, try Just Little Things

tumblr is a unique way to interact with writers and writing communities. It is much more difficult to have a conversation with someone over tumblr than it is over Facebook or Twitter, but tumblr offers other ways to interact with each other, and often directs people towards places where the are discussions. Authors such as John Green and Maureen Johnson are on tumblr. On John's tumblr, you'll find posts which talk about his new book, The Fault in Our Stars, as well as ones which show what inspires as him, and ones which, if nothing else, serve to remind us that he is a real person. Maureen is offering NaNoWriMo advice on her tumblr. 

As for communities, nerdfighteria, the community of nerdfighters founded by John Green and Hank Green, has a tumblr. It offers opportunities for different members of the community to communicate about it through art, and really, how cool is that?

tumblr helps with character development. If you scroll through my tumblr, you'll find images which show that I love dance, comedies, musicals, God, and books, and probably more. There is a lot you could infer from that which may or may not be true, but the point is that anyone's individual tumblr has the potential to tell us a lot about them (or the person they want people to think they are.) An interesting character development exercise could be to create a tumblr for your characters. 

tumblr provides inspiration. If dance inspires you, there's a tumblr for that. If music inspires you, there's a tumblr for that. If images inspire you, there's a tumblr for that. Follow what inspires you, and maybe it'll motivate you to write. Young Adult Fiction is a tumblr with the potential to inspire you, as it posts quotes from YA books. 

Do you have tumblr? What tumblrs do you follow? Are there any tumblrs you know of that could be helpful to writers? Let me know in the comments!