Gratitude, Darkness and the Writer’s Eye

There are moments when life feels like it’s handing you a metaphor with a bow on it. Last Friday, somewhere between Dijon and the Italian border, we had one of those moments. We’d pumped up a flat tyre the night before, hoping it would magically behave itself for the long drive. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. Half an hour down the road, we pulled into one of those French rest stops that are basically a car park with toilets, a few benches, and the vague sense that you’re in a place designed for existential reflection rather than actual rest.

Ben got to work changing the tyre. Rupert stretched his legs with me as I wandered a little, letting the sun warm my face while I looked back at Ben and down at Rupert sniffing - my little travelling unit, my constants.

And my first thought was simple: What a lovely day.  The sun was out. We were on our way to Crete. Ben was competent and calm, doing the practical thing while I did the dog walking and thinking thing. Rupert was happy. Life was good. Even with the inconvenience. Maybe especially with it.

But then—because I’m a writer—my brain did that thing.

One moment I’m basking in gratitude, and the next I’m thinking: Yes, but what if you weren’t you? What if you were a lone woman here at night? What if it was raining? What if you weren’t strong enough to change the tyre? What if another car pulled in? What if the story turned?

And suddenly the same scene—the same sunlit rest stop—became a part of a crime story. A woman stranded. A darkening sky. A stranger’s headlights sweeping across the gravel. The shift is instant, instinctive, and honestly a little absurd.

This is the strange duality of being a writer. Before, I might have simply lived the moment. Now I live it twice: once as myself, and once as the version of me who is always quietly auditioning reality for narrative potential.

Some people might find that dark turn unsettling, as if it reveals something morose or pessimistic. But for me, it doesn’t. The darkness isn’t about my life—it’s about story. It’s imagination doing what imagination does: testing the edges, poking the shadows, asking “what if” even when everything is perfectly fine.

The gratitude is real. The love for my life is real. The dark twist is just… the writer’s lens clicking into place.

It’s not that I see danger everywhere. It’s that I see possibility everywhere. And I think that’s one of the gifts of writing: it teaches you to hold both truths at once. The world is beautiful. The world is dangerous. The world is mundane. The world is extraordinary. And sometimes all of that is happening in the same car park off a French motorway while your partner changes a tyre.

So yes, my mind went from gratitude to murder in under thirty seconds. But that makes me a storyteller using real life.

And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Have an imagination filled week.

Helen x