Happy New Year!!  What’s up 2015?

So, this happened: I finished my next historical novel, Since April!  The stats are in:

• Finished at 9:05am 12/29/2014
• 371 pages
• 108,080 words (pattern power!!)
• According to Word, my total writing time was 21373 minutes.  Which….is horrifying.

Since April has firmly established itself has my longest novel yet.  There was a lot of plot to jam into it, let me tell you.  I’m casting the suspicious side-eye at an editing time of 21,373 minutes, though, for one specific reason: Pinterest.  It’s a slippery slope with Pinterest.  I go from “Oh, I need to hit up Pinterest really fast just to look up the type of shoes women wore in 1912” which then turns into, “Hey, look, a recipe for cinnamon crumble cake with homemade vanilla glaze” which then turns into “I totally want to dye my hair that color…where are the bobby pins?”  Then, four hours later, I remember I’m writing a novel.

My hair color is currently burgundy, FYI.

Now I’ve moved on to the weird, purgatory place between novels: I don’t want to start anything new because I really need to edit Since April.  But I’m not doing that either because I really want to start something new.  I seriously don’t know how to function those first few days after finishing a book.  I’ve been wandering around for months plot plot plot plot and complaining to anyone who’ll listen “Look, I really need to finish this because I have too many other ideas to get started on.”  And now I’m done.  And now I’m promptly lost.  Oh, familiar characters.  I’m just not ready to move on.

But, I’ve edited 83 pages which means…..there’s still a hell of a lot of pages left to go.  At least my semicolon abuse is better with this novel.  It’s only taken me three.

Meanwhile, I’m late to the party named 2012.  What’s up, 2012?  The reason for this is that somehow, I’ve just now discovered the boy band One Direction.  Let’s not get into the details of how it took me like, three years and four albums to figure this out; the important thing is that now I’m onboard with this whole Directioner thing and think Harry Styles is the snazziest thing since sliced bread.  My God, that man and his tight black pants.

Here’s how it went down:

• One Direction was on Graham Norton.  I said, “Hmm, that “Night Changes” song is pretty catchy.”
• One Direction is available on iTunes.  I said, “Hey, look, “Night Changes” is only $1.29.  And “What Makes You Beautiful” is only $0.69 and I really like the number 69″ (as in 1969, you perverts).
• One Direction is on YouTube.  I said, “Hey, I’m going to watch the video for “Night Changes” and see what it’s all about.”
• Chaos.

Next thing you know, I’m downloading the entire album “FOUR” which is freaking awesome and you should totally get it and then….look, the last thing I remember is putting my credit card number into my cell phone and boom.  I’m going to the One Direction concert this summer.

What the…..

I relayed this information to my BFF Sara, who said, “Aren’t you worried about being the oldest person there?”

ACK!!!  SARA!!!  I’m not OLD!!

But then……yeah, the last concert I went to was N Sync.  When I was 18.  And when I was 18, I was willing to have “floor seats” which actually means you’re standing the whole concert so you can see above all the people standing up in front of you.  32 is actually a long way from 18 (still not old) and, look, I’m cheap.  I love Harry Styles as much as the next person (maybe a little more because I have the “ghosts of boy bands past” to guide me in fan girling), but I’m not dropping six hundred bucks to stand and watch a concert and then complain because my head hurts, I can’t hear, and how in the heck did I manage to hurt my back?  No.  I purchased reasonably priced tickets where I can blend in with all the other old people, but not so high up that I’m going to need a Dramamine.  More on that to come.

And now back to editing Since April.  Yay.  I’m so thrilled to go massacre more commas.