what I do

I often have to explain to people what I do for a living, repeatedly. I don't mind. I am sure if I was writing for a magazine you could purchase at the supermarket it would stick in people's minds a little easier. The trouble with a trade magazine is only the people in the industry know that it even exists.

Then with the specific magazine I work with the confusion is expounded. When I say BUSRide, people immediately imagine a magazine for bus riders. Similar to those magazines stuffed in the backs of airline seats. That is not the case at all.

BUSRide has been in publication since the 1960s. A bus historian named Bill Luke started the magazine for motorcoach charter and tour operators. For a charter, think Greyhound for an example. A motorcoach tour would be a few days traveling through Northern California wine country, for example. Like a cruise on wheels, and without the rats or risk of being sold to the sex slave trade in a seedy town.

In the '60s and '70s bus travel was popular until commercial airlines started offering inexpensive flights. By the late 1990s the motorcoach industry was enjoying somewhat of a renaissance with steady growth across the board. September 11 effectively put an end to the growth in the industry, just as it did throughout every element of tourism.

The stagnant but healthy - at least until our current economic issues - motorcoach industry prompted an expansion in BUSRide to include bus transit, school bus as well as the many other bus applications. There is more than you think.

This new growth, coupled with the challenges inherit in publishing a print magazine in 2008, make it an exciting time to be working with this magazine. At our office the Internet is very much unchartered territory. As large magazines begin to make cuts, switch from print to strictly online publishing or even in many cases close down shop, the promise of new media is an exciting one. Even if I may mourn the passing of a color magazine I can turn the pages of with my own hands.

The new year is going to bring about some new changes for the publication, as well as new opportunities for me. Beyond my duties with the magazine's editorial copy, I am leading the charge on a weekly e-newsletter as well as new Web-only features. The magazine is getting a fresh coat of paint too with new design layouts and new departments and features.

Another comment I get from people is that it is great I am writing for a magazine, but too bad I have to write about buses. To begin with, it is much more interesting than you would think. The other benefit is the work I have to put in and the growth I make as a writer. Just because an article is about school bus seat belts, or just because it is a trade magazine does not mean the article should be boring. I am learning the same skills I would get at any other magazine, maybe even better as I have two superiors who are very good at what they do.

When I started at this job I realized that a college journalism degree taught me absolutely nothing. This is now my education. I feel like I got a late start with writing as most writers I speak with have been writing extensively since they were teenagers. I may not have finished 2 1/2 novels and a book of poems, but I can take comfort in the knowledge that I have a job doing exactly what I want to be doing. Writing.