Not having a book to review tonight, busy as I am with non-paying work, I post the video above. Sadly it’s not a live performance video (there doesn’t seem to be one), but I discovered it and thought it rather nice. This is a song I’ve posted before in its original Swedish version, but there seems to be this English version too. As an expert, I pronounce it a successful translation, since with songs, subjective impressions are more important than accuracy. I realize it’s the wrong time of year for a Christmas song, but who knows if I’ll need it at Christmas?

A day in the life of an obscure author:

In accordance with my recently adopted custom of getting up to write in the morning, instead of lying in bed trying to get back to sleep, I rose at 6:30 a.m. to work on The Baldur Game, my work in progress. What I’d done yesterday was to take a block of text I’d written, which I realized was out of historical sequence, and move it back into its proper year. So today I commenced a review of the whole text written thus far, to see if there were any anachronisms left that I need to fix. I think the work is good so far.

At lunch I went to The 50s Grill, one of my favorite local places, and tried something new — the grilled walleye. It was good, as expected, and I topped it off with a piece of their French Silk pie. They do pie extremely well.

This afternoon, I worked on my book narration. This is the cause of considerable fear and trembling for me right now. Friends have generously provided me equipment to begin doing narration on my own. My first project will be The Year of the Warrior. I am confident — nay, a little arrogant — about my ability to do narration with the best of ’em. But the technical aspects — the software and specifications, etc. — scare me to death. (Back in radio broadcast school, I was the best copy reader in my class and the worst engineer.) This delays my progress, but I press on heroically.

Tonight, after I post this, I propose to work on a PowerPoint presentation I’ll be doing later this month in Iowa for the Georg Sverdup Society. Not Vikings this time, but the background of the Lutheran Free Church movement in America.

These things matter in my world.

Oh yes. I’ve committed to attending the Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Oct. 6 and 7 (used to be in Moorhead, MN). An opportunity to sell books, and my experience is that venues where I have not yet flogged my wares are the most fruitful.