On Birthdays, Bound Manuscripts and Cake for Breakfast!

It's my birthday today so I always celebrate by having cake for breakfast. :D  That lovely little specimen shown above no longer exists because I have snarfed it down in celebration of sunshine (it's supposed to be 84 here today) and getting older. :D  I'm planning on more cake later in the day.  It's going to be one of those days...... *cackles with happy laughter*

In other, more interesting news, I have received Bound Manuscripts (hopefully you can hear the echo) which is a preliminary version of THE FAERIE RING, bound like a book. See below:

My lovely editor, Susan Chang, my fabulous agent, Kate Schafer Testerman and I are sending these little beauties out to authors and bloggers in the hope that we get some blurbs (short comments expressing undying love for the book) that we can put on my ARC's (Advanced Reader Copies) and eventually, the final book.

It's a little surreal to see these familiar words bound up in book form, and even more bizarre to consider *people* are hopefully reading and enjoying the story.  I might add that when I was writing this book, it NEVER occurred to me that some of these *people* might be reading my work one day. Ah - the power of a dream....

Anyway, that's it from here.  What's new with you?