The Evolution of a Blog

If you're here reading today, you're probably a short story writer in search of a market or writing tips, or maybe just a reader in search of a zine to read. Either way, welcome to my blog.

It was a year ago today that I signed into Blogger to create My Little Corner, mostly so I'd have a place to post my stories for Patti Abbott's flash challenges. The first month or so of posts were pretty scattered, with posts about writing, a few of my stories, just anything I could think of. A few people like Clair Dickson, Patti, and David Cranmer stopped by and welcomed me to the blogging community so I had a few comments. But mostly I figured I was just another writer taking up space in the ether and nobody would be paying any attention to my scattered thoughts about my writing journey.

But a funny thing happened as the weeks passed and I realized that I could post every possible market I might like to submit to over there on the left. No more searching through scraps of paper and old emails or trying to remember where I heard about that new market. While looking for things to put in the links I ran across a bunch of market sources posted to SMFS by Jack Ewing and posted the ones that were still active. What a treasure trove that was. And as the links on the left grew, so did the number of people who stopped by. I wasn't the only one searching for places to send my short stories.

I've always been a big supporter of the online zines and the amazing short stories they publish, so I started posting about new issues and linking to some of the great stories I've found. And even more people began stopping by. Slowly but surely, I was building the blog into something that was useful not just to me, but to any short story writer who happened by.

Over the past year there have been visitors here from all over the world, I've written over three hundred blog posts and linked to God knows how many sites that might be of interest to those who stopped by.

So I'd like to take a minute of your time to thank you, each and every one of you who has stopped by and dropped a comment, or found a tip that helped with your writing, or got that story published because of a link over there on the left. Because the truth is, if you hadn't stopped by, I probably would have given up on this blog long ago. You've been the source of my pleasure in finding links and sharing thoughts. Knowing that you're there, makes this all worth while. Thank You!!

And of course it wouldn't be a proper post without a great link, so here you go http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2009/10/12/why-book-publishers-love-short-stories/ It's a great and wonderful time to be a short story writer.