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At long last, my new novel has a name:

WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT.

It’s quite a relief. For the past few months, my editor and I have been like parents who bring a baby home from the hospital without a name, other than Baby Boy Gaskell, and then stare at him, waiting for inspiration to strike. Does he look like a John? A Max? A Wolfgang?

Every time one of us had a flash of brilliance, and thought up the perfect name, a quick amazon.com search confirmed that some other author had already had the same brilliant idea. For the longest time, I had the book saved on my computer as WORK IN PROGRESS, which - in my desperation - actually started to grow on me.

"We could call it WORK IN PROGRESS," I suggested to my editor.

She laughed, and then, when she realized I was half-way serious, quickly shot it down. Which is a good thing. Because, much like naming a baby, as soon as the book became WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT, it seemed like it was meant to be called that all along.

Posted 28 August 2009 at 08:58 AM