Greetings Fatberg fans!
Our book is now scheduled for launch in the summer of next year. It's been a long wait, but there has so much to preoccupy everyone this year that the time has come round surprisingly quickly. In the meantime, we've made some great progress - and a surprising decision.
We've been working hard with our editor Martha. She and her colleague Hayley have done a fantastic job on the 'developmental edit' on the manuscript, spotting all sorts of little inconsistencies and making loads of really useful suggestions to help make the story work as hard as possible. Thank you both so much!
In the process, we've all had a discussion about the title of the book -- and decided to change it! This was a little tough for us co-authors to get our heads round at first -- the title has been there for so long, it seemed almost older than the book itself. But it felt like Kitten on a Fatberg was quite limiting for Design to visualise and Sales to market -- and, as our editor put it:
The term itself is no more than a fleeting reference in the book, of course (though a funny one!), and I worry that at present it isn't doing the work of presenting the book to its potential audience as it might – it's just a little too oblique. I worry also that it feels a little too self-consciously zany; the book itself, to my mind (and having participated in exactly these writing workshop groups myself...), is more wry, more brutally observant than Kitten on a Fatberg suggests, and I'd love to see that reflected in the title.
Well, naturally, she had us at 'brutally observant', and we set about coming up with a new title. After an intense pub debate or two, we drew up a longlist, then a shortlist, and finally all agreed on Work in Progress. Why? Well, each of our characters is writing away hard at their own Work in Progress (or WIP, as writers like to say); but equally, each as a personality is a bit of a Work in Progress too.
Having lived with it for a while now, I can say that we're all really happy with the new title and hope that you will come to like it as much as we do too.
All the very best
Martin, Dan, Alex
PS Thanks so much to our latest pledgers - Julian Benton, Paul Braddon, Joshua Davis, Max Richter, Janice McCombie and Brigid Nzekwu!
Pledging will stay open for a while yet if you know anyone else who might be interested in getting their name in the book...