It occurs to me that most people don’t really understand what it is I do. Here, in a vastly abbreviated form, is a normal day in the life of a community newspaper editor:

To most of the world, I work some strange hours.

Of course, I have no control over when the news breaks, but even on a “regular” day, I don’t work regular hours.

I work a lot of nights. Sometimes until 8 or 9 p.m., sometimes until 1 or 2 a.m. I almost never come into the office during the morning.

There are, of course, reasons — other than the fact that I’m just not a morning person. Our newsroom is staffed from about 8 a.m. until our deadline, which is 1:30 a.m. Being the editor, I am responsible for overseeing all of the work done during those hours. Obviously I couldn’t be here for all of it, so I do my best to be here for at least some of all of it.

I get into the office in the early afternoon. I’m greeted by Jill Keppeler, one of our two page designers who lays out all of the pages in the paper that don’t have to be done on deadline: those being the opinion page, the television page, community and any other special sections, like the Ken-Ton Record Advertiser, Sunday Lifestyle and a portion of Night and Day. She also writes a weekly column for our opinion page and a parenting column for the Lifestyle section.

Jill is our utility infielder.

Working during the day with her is Barbara Tucker, our longtime rock of a community news editor. I can go weeks without seeing Barb. She usually leaves around lunch time, before I get into the office. But she’s been holding down the community news beat in this newsroom long enough that the last thing she needs is some dopey editor standing over her shoulder.

The final of the trio of “day” people is features editor Paul Lane. Paul’s primary focus is our Sunday Lifestyle section, though he also contributes to Night and Day and our daily paper with some of the lighter things in the news.

Half their day is over by the time mine is just starting.

I stroll in around 1 or 2 p.m. and head straight for my morning coffee. Sometimes one or both of our news reporters have beaten me to the punch. Neale Gulley and Dan Pye work even stranger hours than I do. Sometimes they have an early morning court case or press conference. Sometimes they have a nighttime council meeting. Sometimes they have both on the same day.

Staff photographer Doug Benz is usually floating around somewhere. Doug takes about 90 percent of the photos you see in this newspaper. He takes his assignments from the rest of the reporting and editing staff and drives all around town taking pictures. Not a bad gig.

I usually see Doug after he’s done shooting for the day, when he comes back to process his images. He’s a good-humored fellow who usually brings to my attention whatever off-color joke is making the rounds.

As I see the pictures and start to get a handle on what our reporters are cooking up, the day starts to shift into another gear.

Around 5 p.m., just as the day crew is leaving, city editor John Hopkins rolls in. He’s the No. 2 in charge of the newsroom behind yours truly. John’s full title is “night city editor,” meaning he works entirely at night to copy edit and oversee the production process.

When John gets here I’m usually holding an extremely informal “budget” meeting. A newspaper budget doesn’t have anything to do with money. It’s the document that spells out where all of the various stories, photos, promos and the like will go. My budget meeting usually involves me shouting out questions to the reporters, finding out which of the stories will be the longest, which are the most interesting and which come with photos. All of these things affect the placement of a story. It’s an inexact science to say the least and the budget often changes in the evening as the layout process unfolds (get it? that’s a newspaper pun!).

If everything has gone according to plan, the budget is done by 6 p.m., when our nighttime page designer, Marci Jordan comes in. Marci is responsible for finishing the entire A and B sections of the newspaper. Depending on the number of pages to do, Marci’s job can easily be the most stressful in the newsroom. I know this because when she’s on vacation, I fill in for her.

John is the primary copy editor, though sometimes we need to send him out on a story assignment. I can and frequently do step in and give the front-page stories a read as well.

Once the stories have been written and edited, they’re turned over to Marci, who invariably tells John or I that the budget we so dutifully assembled needs to be changed because none of the stories fit where they’re supposed to go. And if everything fits reasonably well, it’s usually me that changes the budget after reading the stories and deciding to switch them around. We rearrange the jigsaw puzzle a couple more times, give the completed pages one last proof and send them off to the production department to begin the printing process.

Then I go home, sleep, get up and do it all again.

Eric DuVall is the managing editor of the Tonawanda News. His column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Contact him at eric.duvall@tonawanda-news.com.