Thursday 14 February 2013

Thank you + photo story + GIFTS 4U!


I've been doing this blogging thing for 3 and a half years, and the numbers of followers have grown steadily and impressively and I've been excited and grateful for each new follower I've gained.

In the past couple of weeks I broke the 2-digit barrier and saw the pleasing (if you're pleased by that kind of thing) number of 100 a-top my followers list.

So I'm celebrating by looking back a bit, and by saying thank you.

Looking back
Right at the beginning, two posts in, I tried to explain why I respected Ali Smith so much. I was getting ready to enter The Bridport Prize, so full of the excitement and intimidation of the small, really small, chance that my idol might read my story. Did I ever expect what would happen next?

I tried some stuff, structured stuff, like the series of guest posts I ran on 'How You Write', (the links are in the side bar if you're interested) where writers came over and talked about their writing process.

I shared, and still do, information on interesting writing prizes and places to sub to. (I'm overdue one of those. Dan Purdue did a good one recently.)


And good writing news, like this and this.

And I got out my Rejection Section once or twice.

I've had some great guests: helped Vanessa Gebbie and Kerry Hudson as they launched their brilliant debut novels, and I interviewed Dan Purdue and publisher David Lear.

This post about Bridport, this one where I got all opion-y, and this fella are some of the posts with the highest number of hits. 

I've told you some embarrassing, trivial, ridiculous stuff.

So now I want to say Thanks, Cheers, Ta - for your support, comments, encouragement, ideas these past few years.

I feel like I've met some of you already, I HAVE met some of you already, and I'm sure I'll meet some of you in real life at some point too.

So, here's me trying to say thank you:

Hm - webcam makes writing come out wrong!














 Ahem.

And there's more!

I'm  going to send, to anywhere in the world, 3 little thank you gifts to 3 of my followers.

All you have to do is be a follower of this blog (all this talk of following is making me feel all omnipotent), and leave a comment here before Tuesday 19th Feb at 5pm.

New followers welcome! I'll randomly choose two names from my current list (that is up to and including Follower 100: Bruno Gaspari) and one name from any new folks who'd like to jump on the following train after today. Choo choo! (Sees list rapidly decline in numbers.)

So that's all - say hello - tell your friends - I promise I won't use the winners' addresses inappropriately and I promise I've put that permanent marker pen away now.



8 comments:

Miss McFish said...

I love your blog, Teresa, and I feel like I know YOU too!

Does the first person to comment def get one of the prizes?! Methinks they should ;-)

Miss McFish said...

...and I get at least one extra point for being a fellow North-Yorkshirer...

Helen Baggott said...

First visit here - seems a nice, friendly place!

Teresa Stenson said...

Hi Mandy - ha, well so far you're in with a good chance! And I could send the present tied around a sparrow or something... thank you, for the lovely thing you said, and for your commenting-support.

Hello Helen - welcome, thank you for following - you also have a good chance (so far), this time in the 'New Follower' category. Good to have you here :)

Rachel Fenton said...

You started blogging around the same time as me and I remember the happy feeling of finding your blog - another Yorkshire lass doing well - and it's lovely watching you grow in confidence and success.

xxx

Teresa Stenson said...

Ah, Rachel, you little bugger, that's so nice. Thank you. If your name is picked out I'll send you some muck from t'Moors x

Dan Purdue said...

I'm mentioned in the post, so I'll decline to be in the draw - but many congratulations on getting to 100 followers, and keep up the good work (both the blogging and, y'know, actual writing and that)!

Jessica said...

Congratulations on getting 100 followers! You're a blogging superstar!