Okay, I've got all sorts of things I was planning to link to or talk about in this entry. And I will...but it's a little hard to type right now, because every single inch of my skin is tingling with awareness of my just-arrived, copyedited manuscript, which is sitting across the room from me. Incredibly, despite the fact that I've had it now for over an hour, it's still sealed inside its packaging, because it arrived when I was in the middle of feeding MrD potato soup, and I didn't want any spills to occur...and now MrD's asleep in my lap, so I'm trapped on the other side of the room from it.

Plus, I'm actually both thrilled and terrified by it. So in some ways, the other side of the room feels like the safest place for it!

I am going to open it up today. Honestly. I swear. But right now, I'm just kind of savoring the anticipation.

This is really real now, isn't it? Wow. Wow. Wow.

Which is probably as good a time as any to let you guys know that, although I'm going to keep on referring to these as the Kat novels, Kat by Moonlight probably will not be the actual Book I title when it's published next year. As much as I loved that title, and the two following ones, they just didn't give the Regency/magical feel that the books really needed. I'll let you know as soon as we have the real title finalized - there's one title that my editor and I both really like, but I'm not certain enough yet that it will happen to feel comfortable sharing it here. Oh, and if anyone has any ideas for a snappy series title (i.e., one single title for the entire trilogy, separate from the individual book titles) that includes the name "Kat"? I would be ohhhh, so grateful if you could either email me or leave a comment! In fact, if we ended up using one of those suggestions? There would definitely be a prize, which would probably involve a free copy of the book, and maybe some yummy Yorkshire tea as well. Because I am having such a hard time trying to think of a series title myself, right now...

Everything's starting to feel startlingly real, actually, despite the fact that publication might still be a full year away. (It's probably going to be published sometime between January - April 2010.) Patrick's building me a beautiful new website, completely centered around the Kat books, with lots of Kat extras and Regency links. My awesome screenwriter/director brother Dave is asking me scarily detailed questions about what kind of book trailers I want. (Good ones, of course! I told him that straight away. But, sigh, somehow he wants more details than that...drat it, this kind of thing is actually hard work!) Making my entire day - and week - and month, I woke up yesterday to find an email in my inbox from a reader who wanted to say how excited she is about the descriptions she's read of my book, and how she's looking forward to reading it when it comes out. I re-read that email an embarrassing number of times yesterday.

It's all incredibly exciting and incredibly scary at the same time. It really is real. Wow.

I think I'm going to have to put off those links for another day. I'm too busy tingling right now.