The Norwegian word for “busy” is “travelt,” which always makes me thing of a crowded road. Which is pretty much what I feel like right now. I have a) my “novel writing” work, which currently means formatting books for paperback, b), the magazine I’m editing for the Valdres Samband, the ethnic organization that hired me for this purpose, c) my translation work on the Sigrid Undset biography, and d) the monthly newsletter for my Sons of Norway lodge (which won’t take long but should have been finished by now).

This morning it rained. The first rain we’ve had around here in months. It’s been raining all day, except for when it snowed (alas for the trick-or-treaters!). When I was done with my novel writing this morning, I happened to look outside and found that the first four of my cartons of orphaned books had arrived from Nordskog (see last night’s story). I have an idea the mail carrier was unhappy about being made to carry those heavy cartons, because he left them on the very outside edge of the porch, where the drip from the awning would pour straight down on them.

Some of the cartons were soaking wet; all were damp. I brought them in immediately and freed the books from the cartons. They’re air drying in my living room now, as are the cartons.

Most of the books are fine. A few have covers curled. But I’m getting these things for pennies on the dollar, and don’t expect to outlive the supply anyway.

Ten more cartons arrived this afternoon (perfectly dry, I’m happy to say). Also I finally got my paperback copies of The Elder King from Amazon. I’d been looking forward to that – photo above.

And… I got a surprise. Some moron – and there’s no moron but me on this job – accidentally put the wrong title in the page headers. All the right-hand pages in this edition say at the top that the book is Hailstone Mountain, which it is not.

I wouldn’t have this problem if I’d done the prudent thing and ordered a review copy for myself before releasing it. But I lack the patience. Now I have this.

It’s easily fixed. I’ll republish it tomorrow. Which means the book will be briefly unavailable. The few copies already sold will go down in history as errata, no doubt to become sought-after collectors’ items.