At times of the year—and increasingly it is becoming ALL times of the year—there is a steady flow of book projects bobbing their way along the river that is my work. Most of the time I am able to move the logs along like a river pig with a peavey. But every once in a while a project gets caught in a bend and things start to back up—usually smaller logs like emails, copyedit reviews, phone calls, format checks, etc. Nothing ever near as bad as the Great Log Jam of 1883 in the Grand River of Michigan or the Greatest Logjam Ever in 1886 on the St. Croix River between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

log jam

Yesterday I wriggled a key log loose. I didn’t have to use too much dynamite.