Or rather, a very tiny one. Our tactical blunder’s name is the Bandit Lord, and as you can see he’s made of trouble.

For those of you who’ve never had a young Bandit Lord around the Writing Cave, or the house, let us warn you that if you fall prey to one you will never again accomplish anything besides keeping the young Bandit Lord from destroying everything you hold dear.

In addition to running interference between the Bandit Lord and Lady Marzipan, we’ve been on constant alert for tiny teeth gnawing on electrical cords, wastebaskets, socks, carpets, zippers, our fingers… the list is infinite. His current schedule is chaotic, to put it charitably, which makes it very difficult to carve out uninterrupted writing time. We’re currently experimenting with working in shifts. One of us follows the Bandit Lord around his kingdom, putting out fires and appeasing the peasants, while the other retreats to the Writing Cave and tries to knock out a few hundred words. It’s really not the most efficient way to write a novel, but it’s better than nothing. And all too soon the Bandit Lord will be a haughty and merciless overlord.

You can see it in his face.