New gig

One of the reasons I started this blog was to provide myself, rather selfishly, with a place to write. Since Bike Magazine closed its Local Knowledge section, to which I used to contribute a monthly column covering the Southwestern U.S., I really haven't had any substantial, paying, professional writing gigs, and thus I haven't had any real impetus to keep writing. Sure, like all (people who occasionally fancy themselves) writers, I have a few personal pet-projects that I tell myself I'm working on. But in my world, without the promise of pay, and/or the threat of impending deadlines, these kinds of things tend to just languish. Add to that a wife and a kid, obligations to my 'real' jobs, and the demands of life in general, and suddenly one day you just kinda realize: It's been ages since I sat down to write anything. Ergo, this blog: A place to write and a promise-to-self to make it both meaningful and regular, despite a lack of metrics ensuring a real audience; one always hopes that someone's reading and watching what I put here. Anyway, I like to think there is.

But, like all well-intended projects of this nature, sometimes life gets in the way. To a degree, I guess that's been the case for the past several weeks, beginning with my busted ribs and concluding this past week with an inconvenient summertime kiddie-cold that I acquired from my daughter.

But, I've also been remiss in putting stuff here lately because I've been working during my spare time developing a few new pieces of writing for a spot I've been given, rather unexpectedly, at a new website: Trailnation.com. I hadn't really been trying to get any writing work lately (I did submit an unsolicited manuscript to Mountain Gazette recently which got rejected), but I was stoked when one of the editors of Trailnation.com, an old friend, contacted me and asked me to be a contributor to the new site; apparently he'd stumbled onto this blog via a link to it on my Facebook page and I guess he liked the tone of a few of the older posts. Whadya know.

I've got a deadline in just about a week for my first piece and I've been told the nascent Trailnation.com website will 'drop' around the 18th of August, and also that a Trailnation TV show will debut on the Fox Sports Network throughout the Midwest region on the 22nd of August. I have no idea what sort of format the site (or the show, for that matter) will have, or even a full grasp of what the content will be like, only that they are striving to create a place where all kinds of trail users, bicyclists, motos, hikers, and equestrians will come together to share and discuss their passion for trails and the outdoors. I've been assigned the task of writing about riding bikes on trails. Sounds good to me! We'll see how it goes.

Hope you stay tuned.