Hello! So I thought it would be a nice idea to write a blog every once in a while about what's going on with Blinking Cursor.
If anyone has stumbled upon this blog without knowing what Blinking Cursor is, it's a submissions-based literary magazine. Or at least, that's the way it started. I'm hoping to release more publications in the future, such as writing guides and anthologies. But we'll get into that a bit later!
So a bit about me. My name's Samantha, or Sam, I'm 22 (at time of writing) and I live in England. I've always been interested in writing; I started with short stories, then when I was fourteen or fifteen I would write song lyrics, often to vent my teen angst. Those were the days of, well, pretty bad writing, really! Lyrics aren't particularly my thing, and I haven't gone back to writing them since then. Now I write a lot of poetry, and I'm also currently working on a novel. I have a degree in Business Information Systems, which I graduated from last year, so I'm also very much into computers. That's what makes Blinking Cursor fun for me - it's not just about writing, it's about working on the website as well and the online presence. Creating and editing the website entirely with HTML in Notepad is great fun. I'm also very into music, mostly rock. But enough about me!
Blinking Cursor began in June 2009. I can't really pinpoint how the idea came about, but I think that the inspiration came partly from the fact that I had been published in a few anthologies myself, and also that the Young Writers Society, an online forum with some awesome people, (www.youngwriterssociety.com) had published an anthology using Lulu.com. So when I got the idea, I immediately knew how I was going to get it printed. I started off with a Wordpress blog as a website, and a tentative deadline date, but with not much advertising, I didn't receive many submissions. I pushed the date back and that time I got enough submissions to make the first issue of the magazine.
I kind of look back on the first issue as a beta. There were a couple of things wrong with it that I don't mind pointing out now, because I know not to make those mistakes again. For some reason that I can't actually remember anymore, I needed to revise the copy of the magazine, which meant uploading a new version to Lulu.com. What I didn't realise was that this would drive the price up a bit. I also charged for the downloadable version as well as the hard copy, which people weren't very receptive to. Well, you live and learn. Plus, when I received my copy of the magazine, I realised that I had put the page numbers on the same sides instead of alternative left and right corners, so the numbers on the right hand page were on the inside instead of the outside of the book. Plus, there was a misplaced apostrophe in the blurb! But, as any changes would drive the price up further, and that issue wasn't as cheap as I had hoped anyway, it's going to have to stay that way. But being a one-man-band, I can just about forgive myself for the occasional mistake.
The second issue was released in Winter 2009 and went much more smoothly. I got more submissions, didn't misplace any apostrophes, and found out how to do the page numbers properly in Word. The third issue (Spring 2010) received even more submissions! With the Facebook page, the Twitter account, and now this blog and the page on the Young Writers Society, as well as listings in online directories such as ralan.com and Duotrope's Digest, Blinking Cursor is all over the internet! The next blog I'll write will be about what I hope to see in Blinking Cursor's future, but I think I've rambled on long enough for now! Until next time. :)
