Cycling link issues

I have a stupid question, but I've been trying to work this out on my own for almost 2 days now and I've gotten no where. I'm working with a cycling link at the moment, but I cannot seem to get it to set a variable.

The code I have at the moment is as follows:

<<cyclinglink  set $variable "thing 1" "thing 2" "thing 3" "thing 4">>

If anyone could tell me what I'm doing incorrectly I would be most grateful.