During the summer of 2007 I emailed a number of writing buddies to ask if they'd be interested in starting a zine. I'm glad to say that the response was positive, and Nonnie, Ramon, Yvette and Maia agreed to read and edit for the vehicle, which I had designed and called Writer's Corner.

However I soon found it heavy going for display purpose. While all the elements were in the correct place, I just hadn't got the design right. So we had a chat and out of our discussion came the idea for "The Linnet's Wings", which has become our Art and Literary zine and was named by Nonnie for her love of the Yeats poem "Lake Isle of Innisfree."

To launch the first issue of The Linnet's Wings, we (all of us) mailed around a few writers whose work we knew and whose diligence, skill and attention to detail we admired. We got the heads up from 95% and I went back to the drawing board to work with Peter Gilkes, our software designer here in the office in Drumod (Peter runs the show for ddwebiste.com) to map the basic concept. You see, the easy option would have been a blog or an Adobe dreamweaver concept, but I wanted our own showcase.

Through the month of July 2007, Pete worked and I tested and it took a month of hard graft to design, install and data map the software for our first issue. I remember when he downed tools at the end of the month to go back to the paying job, I had the web template tools with which to create an electronic magazine.

And for me there is a difference in the web package, which one can buy off the shelf and the package which we worked to design. For our Linnet product is intangible. It's about about the blood, sweat and tears that goes into composing a line of poetry, a plot for a short story or that very distinctive skill that is required to say a lot in few words - the expertise required to write micro or flash fiction. It's also in the eye of the photographer that see's beyond and behind the shot as he/she teases the camera to give up what's there.

Anyways the design was completed as far as Peter was concerned, that was until each day at coffee I'd drop another hint. A photo gallery, a video display page, a page counter...and slowly he went back to designing in his spare time to upgrade our display tools. And slowly we moved to a new lightweight design for our Winter issue in January of this year, as we continued to build new routines to run mail programme, pdf files etc and the design continued right up to our summer issue.  And as I kept my eye firmly on the backroom, Nonnie, Ramon and Yvette read and edited submissions and mailed contributors while Maia tested our design tools and talked to photographers and artists about their displays.

Now, we're designing our first anniversary issue and as I'm re-publishing Writer's Corner. I'm discussing how we're going to raise money to pay our writers and artists while taking 'The Linnet's Wings to print and it may never happen with markets as they are, but I'm looking forward to the challenges of the coming year and we're looking forward to reading new work as we continue to build The Linnet's Wings into the zine and magazine, which we know can take its place beside the best in our market place.

M Lynam Fitzpatrick