Why doesn't creating file with echo work for remote directories in this script?

Question

I aliased the following script:

#!/usr/bin/bash

if [[ -d "template.html" ]]; then
  :
else
  cp -n /home/$(whoami)/CS/Software/Pollen/template.html .
fi

/usr/bin/echo "#lang pollen



[1]: " > ${1}.html.pmd

with alias tmd="~/CS/Software/Bash/create_md.sh" in my .bashrc. The script does its job of creating a file in the current directory but it fails to create a file in a distant directory, I get from Bash: bash: /home/jim/CS/Software/Bash/create_md.sh: No such file or directory. Quoting, i.e. "${1}.html.pmd", has not resolved the matter. Yet echo typed in manually, e.g. echo "ana-echo">ana1/ana2/file.html.pmd does such job. Why is it so? How might I improve on the script (so that it does the job in distant directories as well)?