Featured image: “Magical Girl Tessa” by Primantis.
Just as a reminder, November is National Novel Writing Month. If you’ve ever wanted to write a whole novel in a single month, now is the time. There is an official website, linked above, where you can get pep talks, track your progress, and so forth.
I am reliably informed that if you hit writer’s block during a NaNoWriMo marathon, “just add ninjas” is a good way to get out of it. This is known as Chandler’s Law, formulated by pulp writer Raymond Chandler, who once said, When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”
This technique has worked for me in the past. Jake and the Dynamo is a story very amenable to Chandler’s Law: I am unashamed to admit that I “just added robot dinosaurs from space” because I didn’t know how else to save Jake’s bacon.
ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention that, after the next two chapters are up, I believe Jake and the Dynamo will have hit the 100,000-word mark. Depending on who you ask, 40,000 is your basic novel length.
