Week in Words

Writing romcoms at the end of the world

Hi, I’m Amber Eve — author of smalltown romantic comedies, and my long-running blog, Forever Amber. If you’d like to know more about me, start here. If you’d like to hear more from me, meanwhile, hit the button below…

So, here’s the thing: I have, as some of you know, been struggling to keep up with everything these last few weeks, for a variety of reasons, some of which I’ll be sharing with you soon, and others of which… are just not that interesting, really.

Until I’m able to share some of the things that are at least mildly interesting, then, I’ve decided that, going forward, these Friday posts will continue to be a ‘Week in Words’ diary-style roundup of my week, with a focus on writing, and, in addition to those, I’ll also be adding in some other, more focused posts, as and when I have the time/energy/no longer feel like I’m drowning all the time.

Are you ready? Here’s this week in words, as a full-time author working on her tenth book…

SUNDAY

Last night, after listening to me talk all day about how I was BACK IN THE GAME and was going to be sMaShInG all of my fitness and writing goals this week, my husband very kindly ordered me the weighted vest I’d been talking about getting from Amazon, with next day delivery, meaning it’ll be here in time for me to start a fresh, new week.

Naturally, then, I wake up the very next morning to a throat like sandpaper, that horrible “I’m about to be ill soon” feeling, and the now-familiar dread I feel every time I attempt to read the news.

So, not the best start to the day, all things considered.

We’ve made plans to meet family for lunch, though, so, a few hours later, we’re driving merrily along the motorway, when there’s a loud bang, then a series of smaller ones, which continue until we’re finally able to safely pull over, at which point we discover that the undertray of the car (or whatever you call the flat bit underneath it; Google tells me it’s an undertray, but that sounds like something to do with baking to me?) has attempted to part company with the rest of the vehicle.

So that’s also awesome.

Thankfully, we make it to the lunch venue unscathed, and, the lunch venue in question being a garden centre (because that’s literally the only place we ever go when it’s not December or July…), Terry and his brother manage to tie the car back together with twine, to allow us to drive it home again, where it awaits the attention of a mechanic.

You know that saying about how a Sunday well-spent brings a week of content?

Consider this an important piece of foreshadowing, people…

MONDAY

I’d hoped the whole sore throat/mystery illness would be a 24-hour thing and I’d wake up this morning feeling refreshed and ready to go, but LOL, NOPE. I actually feel even worse than I did yesterday, so, needless to say, there is no early rising, and no exercise is done before I sit down at my desk to attempt to add some words to Book Number 10, while telling myself I’ll go back to bed as soon as I hit my target.

I do hit my target (1,600 words), and even go a little over it (1,814 words), but, of course, by then Max is home from school, and by the time I finally get into bed, my cold has fully established itself, and I get to spend one of those long, horrible nights shivering despite the hot water bottle I have clutched to my chest, having to jump out of bed every so often to get more tissues for my streaming nose, and having a series of incomprehensible fever dreams, most of which appear to be based on my novel, and which are only slightly less coherent than it is.

I hate this.

I miss last week, when Brooklyn Beckham was breaking the internet and I could still imagine sitting at my desk all day without wanting to cry.

WORDCOUNT: 1,814

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TUESDAY

Wake up feeling like I died in the night, but had to get up for the school run anyway. It’s so dark outside it feels like the middle of the night even at 9am, and although we drive to school rather than walking, I still end up soaked because it’s that combination of pouring rain + wind which renders my allegedly waterproof coat completely useless. My cold is doing that thing where it allows me to briefly rally for long enough to do the school run, but as soon as I get home I have to take painkillers then go and dig out the wearable hot water bottle my parents gave me for Christmas (It’s literally a hot water bottle that straps onto your body, guys: run, don’t walk…) because I’m still freezing cold and aching all over.

Despite this, I somehow manage to write 1,950 words (please don’t mistake this for heroism, it was more like masochism…), although I’m cheating slightly here because, at some point during last night’s fever dream medley it occurred to me that a plot point in chapters five and six needs to change, but tackling that’s going to require significantly more mental energy than I have today, so that’s going to have to be tomorrow’s problem instead.

WORDCOUNT: 1,950 words

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WEDNESDAY

I manage to get some better quality sleep on Tuesday night, and wake up feeling much better. Not ‘walk for miles in a weighted vest’ better, but definitely ‘waking up without wanting to cry at the injustice of it all’ better, which is progress, at least.

Despite this, I do not actually manage to tackle the plot point that I mentioned yesterday, because doing that will involve deleting hundreds of words, and then I won’t be able to hit today’s target, because I’ll be starting off at about minus 1,500 words, and I… I just can’t guys. This is too much. I am done. The book will just have to stay broken. I will just have to stay broken.

Instead of fixing all the things, I write another 1,760 words which feels good, but also kind of wrong, really, because I feel a bit like I’m building my house on a shonky foundation, here. Like, I really need to go back and change the bit that needs to be changed, but as well as the ‘deleting of words’ issue, there’s also the issue of me having to do some detailed thinking about what to replace them with, and as I do my best thinking while either out for a walk, in the shower, or while lying awake at 3am, there isn’t much chance of that happening because I’m still not feeling well enough for the walking, and there’s only so many showers a girl can take, you know?

I do lie awake for a bit at 3am, though.

WORDCOUNT: 1,760

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THURSDAY

I am BACK! And, to prove it, I get up and do my strength workout before Max is even up; then, a few hours later, I somehow manage to pull a muscle in my neck while getting out of my seat (yes, really), and render myself more or less unable to move my head. Yay, me! What a week for the ol’ exercise, huh?

Fortunately I don’t really need my head to be able to move much in order for me to type, so I write 1,741 words and still don’t fix that plot point. Future Me is going to hate Current Me for this.

I also have a video call which allows me to write some very important dates in my diary that I’ve been waiting a very long time for, and this is very exciting, and only a little bit scary, so I celebrate with a couple of episodes of Bridgerton and some wine which at least helps me forget that I still can’t fully move my head.

WORDCOUNT : 1,741

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FRIDAY

Because my parents normally take Max for a sleepover on Thursday, Fridays are my ‘lazy’ morning, when I get to lie in and then spend the rest of the day frantically trying to catch up. This Friday I also have a video call with my agent, and a really quite astonishing amount of ‘faffing around’ to do, the upshot of which is that I only end up writing 831 words (my target for today was 1,600) before giving up on the week… and, indeed, on the month, which, honestly, has been a bit of a washout, really, for a lot of reasons.

Over on Instagram, I’ve been seeing lots of people doing ‘month in review’ style posts where they share photos of all of the fun things they’ve done this month, normally while protesting that they haven’t actually done any fun things this month. Which is all well and good, but, excluding visits to my parents’, who live a mile away, I’ve just realised I literally only left the village three times in January — and given that one of those times was to have lunch in a garden centre and come back with a ruined car, I’m already starting to doubt the wisdom of switching to these diary-style updates, because, guys, I’m sorry, but I really can’t promise I’m going to have a whole lot to say in them, sadly.

I CAN promise an exciting update next month, though (Well, exciting for ME, anyway…), so if you’re thinking of unsubscribing, you might want to at least wait until then, because who knows: maybe this thing’s about to get good?

Until then, thanks for reading,