It’s been two years since the start of my blog.

I admit, it was two experimental years, but this time it will be different. That’s the intention anyway. Blogging can be a strange plane of existence. It is much different from the headspace you get when you have a pen and pad in hand. As I sit here writing (or typewriting for the hipsters out there, or not, you be you!), I notice that staring at a blank screen with the insertion point cursor bar blinking awkwardly in place excites me. Its allure can be entrancing.

We both want that exchange of Rubik’s cube speed, key to finger, finger to key. I almost got sensual there; not all sex sells ladies and gentleman. When ever I take to the keyboard or loose-leaf paper, I don’t necessarily take to it with a certain urgency, although at times I would like that precious thought to surface. For me, writing is more like LEGOs. You have this beautiful creation on the box and when you open it up, what do you have? Bags of bricks waiting to be assembled, step by step.

Writing can be a weary endeavor, but it is a fun kind of weary. The effort you put into it is a reward in itself after you come to see your final project and say with disbelief, “I wrote that?” The goal is to surprise yourself, and then when you least expect it, surprise others. Why a blog then? A few reasons actually. Blogging, like writing, is a lot like hunting. It can catch your feelings and thoughts in an instant or it can go on a long chase to get the words out of you. I have been on a chase for two years and some of you will attest that is not very long, but I will say this. The hunt has me excited and the game will only just be out of reach. What good is writing if I can expect it all the time?

To blog is to write, no matter how trivial it may sound to the person who asks. All the more reason to show them its purpose. I think of the blog as a short assignment, somewhere you can serve your thoughts as appetizers before the main course hits the table. Blogs of course are not limited to just words, we can read pictures, music, people, any topic can be read and written about. If you can read, write, and if you can write, please read. Which leads me to the pursuit of voice: who am I speaking to?

Hopefully somebody, preferably you. No not you, you. Yes, the collective you. Audience is the people who decide to relish in the task of reading you, watching you, suspending their disbelief with you. Consider yourself as audience, think of all the fans, fandoms, and fanfictions you find yourself a part of and ask, is this something I would want to partake in? Write for you and in turn you will write for the collective you; you just won’t realize it.

When I was first starting out, most of my posts were reflection pieces. They were “a day in the life” without any real takeaway for anyone else but myself. The original plan was to establish advice for readers from my experiences, but only so much wisdom can come from a first-year student in college. Observations were made but the semblance of advice was left to be questioned, or so I asked the readers. I’ve decided instead to make Wiggins’ Words a literary blog since English Literature is my major of choice. Not only that, what I’ve read and written over these couple years has been, I feel, the start I was looking for.

The blog embodies not only your reader, but yourself. Being a writer must be the best job description in the world, you get to be so many things! Now, it will just be you, your keyboard, a screen and your friend insertion point. Then, it will be readers and writers who share in the commonwealth of the thought process you set out for each other. Again, that is the vision and it’s good to keep it in your sights. What I’m writing here right now could be just the spur of the moment. It could be a thorough and time-consumed post. It won’t be any of those things however, if you don’t write anything.