My original working title for Waking Lazarus was, ahem, Non-Prophet. Yes, it was a cheap pun. But then, I've bought more than a few cheap puns in my day. When I began showing early drafts of the story to other writers at Zoetrope Studios online (www.zoetrope.com), one critiquer tried to convince me--more than once--I should call it The Reluctant Prophet. I cringed when I heard that. Non-Prophet may be a bit horsey, but The Reluctant Prophet sounds downright comical, don't you think? I told him it sounded like The Nutty Professor to me; he was horribly offended, and composed a long note to me about books and movies following "The Adjective Noun" constructions for their titles, and how many of them were NOT comedies. Oooh-kay.

So, following Non-Prophet, Waking Lazarus became my working title. When Bethany House bought the book in the Summer of 2005, we batted around a ton of other possible titles, and came up with six other final candidates: Turnabout, To Die is Gain, Near Life, Reprise, The Upward Spiral, and Signs of Life. We did a bit of informal surveying, considered all the possibilities, thought a lot about marketing...and decided to go with Waking Lazarus, the working title. That was always my favorite, although I did like something about all the others, too. Well, maybe with the exception of To Die is Gain; in retrospect, I think that we were trying way too hard with that one.

Not quite down there in The Reluctant Prophet territory, mind you, but pretty close.