I’ve been a member of Writelink since 2004. A friendly Place, my work grew with it. The very first draft of The Haunting of Melmerby Manor’s opening chapter appeared on there two years before it was finally published.

Over the past 5 years, the place has undergone some transformation, mainly at the behest of the members asking for this, that and the other. In May 2009, Sue, the site owner and administrator, shifted it to a new software platform and things went downhill from there.

Many of the features did not work and by September, few people were making use of those that did. It was a matter of concern for several members, so in an effort to energise the place, three other members and myself got our heads together and came up with Writelinkers Magazine.

Maureen Vincent-Northam and Lorraine Mace have been around Writelink longer than me. Trevor Belshaw joined in 2008 but soon became dedicated to the site when he began to publish work, thanks to the feedback from other members.

Since the idea of Writelinkers was mine, I took on the task of putting it together, using Microsoft Publisher. Boy, do I know how to make a rod for my own back, or what?

We decided on a quarterly issue, and aimed to put the first one out by mid-December, 2009. This was in October.

The first thing I had to do was teach myself Publisher and its capabilities. No sweat. I used to teach applications, didn’t I? Yes I did, but those were applications I already knew and understood. I knew next to nothing about Publisher except how to make a rough calendar.

It took almost a fortnight to get the front page and banner right, and estimate wordage/ poetry lineage per page.  We included puzzles, those had to be laid out, too, and the answers supplied. I threw in photographs and watched the file size leapt from a modest 1mb, to 9meg for the inclusion of two pictures. I went back to the drawing board on that. I learned how and where to find fillers to drop into those awkward spaces that the text wouldn’t quite fill.

My email inbox soon filled with feedback from my fellow editors, and then with submissions from members once we had announced the project. It drove me up the wall. I had so much to do on it, I even took my netbook to work to potter with bit and pieces during my break.

Overall, it was a fascinating and rewarding experience, but I wouldn’t fancy taking on the job of editing the Daily Mirror. Not for twice the salary.