Writing as Therapy
How The Light Between Us Helped Me Heal—and Why I’m Writing The Days I Lost
I’ve spent years pointing my camera at the world, trying to make sense of it through light, lines, and timing. Photography teaches you to notice—the way a cloud drifts, the way a striker shapes his body before he strikes the ball, the way evening turns the sea into mercury. Writing a novel, I’ve learned, is the same habit of noticing—only this time, the lens is turned inward. And that act, slow and deliberate, has been unexpectedly therapeutic.
When I began The Light Between Us, I thought I was writing a love story. I still am. But somewhere between the Save-the-Cat beat sheets, the corkboard full of index cards, and the umpteen drafts, I realised I was also writing a map out of my own fog—naming feelings I’d tucked away, making peace with versions of myself I hadn’t met in years. I didn’t plan that part. It just arrived, the way the best light does, quietly, if you stand still long enough.
What The Light Between Us Taught Me
The book’s dual timelines—1980s North London and the present day—forced me to live in two eras at once. On the page, Sean and Linda swap mixtapes and scribbled notes; in the present, they navigate the weight of time and the ache of almosts. Writing those scenes meant revisiting my own memory boxes—the songs, the streets, the friendships that defined me. That was therapeutic in two ways:
Naming the unnamed. Feelings get slippery when they stay internal. Putting them into dialogue, gestures, and specific images—ink-smudged thumbs, rain on a bus window, a borrowed Walkman with one earcup held together by tape—gave them shape. Once something has a shape, it’s easier to handle.
Holding two truths at once. The past is both beautiful and bruised. In fiction, you can honour both without picking a side. I found compassion for younger me while also thanking the present for its hard-won perspective. That’s a kind of healing I didn’t know I needed.
There were practical rituals that helped, too. I’d build playlists (The Cure, Tears for Fears, Thompson Twins, Echo & the Bunnymen—old companions), then free-write before touching the draft. I’d walk the Cornish coast or a quiet Wiltshire lane and speak dialogue under my breath until it sounded like real people, not characters. I’d end sessions by jotting the “next small thing” so tomorrow never started cold. These little habits steadied me. Progress became a string of small, honest steps rather than a sprint toward some perfect chapter.
The Page as a Safe Exposure
Therapy sometimes uses exposure—meeting the thing you fear in controlled conditions. The page is perfect for that. You can sit with regret without being swallowed by it, return to a hard memory but stop before you cross the line, rewrite a scene—not to falsify it, but to ask what else might have been true.
In The Light Between Us, letters became a motif. There’s a reason letters are therapeutic: they create a gentle distance. You can say the whole of what you mean without being interrupted by someone’s expression. You can fold it up, leave it on the desk, and come back later. Writing the novel felt like a long letter to my own past—unsent, but understood.
Why I’m Writing The Days I Lost
My new book (working title The Days I Lost) is, at heart, a story about time—how it bends around the choices we don’t make, how it leaves footprints where we expected blank sand. It’s not a book about erasing the past; it’s about befriending it. If The Light Between Us helped me name what was, The Days I Lost is helping me decide what to do with that knowledge.
This time, I’m even more intentional about the therapeutic part:
A gentler drafting pace. Instead of muscling through, I write in focused bursts, then step away. Reflection is part of the work, not a luxury after it.
Questions over conclusions. Each chapter starts with one hard question (e.g., “What would forgiveness look like if it were practical?”). I don’t force an answer. I let the characters walk me toward something honest.
Embodied scenes. I try to ground emotional beats in physical detail: the sting of cold on a morning field, the grit of sand on a camera grip, the click-whirr of a film advance. Anchoring big feelings in small, sensory truths keeps the story—and me—steady.
In a way, The Days I Lost is my attempt to make peace with the unspectacular miracles of ordinary days. The ones that got swallowed by routine. The ones we were too distracted to notice. The ones we’d like another go at—not to change them, necessarily, but to witness them properly.
The Craft That Calms
People often ask whether writing is cathartic because you “get it all out.” Sometimes. But more often, the therapy is in the craft:
Structure holds the heart. Beat sheets and outlines don’t cage emotion; they protect it. Knowing where a scene sits in the story arc gives me permission to go deep, because the scaffolding will hold.
Revision is self-respect. Rewriting isn’t punishment for a bad first draft; it’s care for the person you are now and the reader you’ll meet later. Each pass is a kinder, clearer conversation.
Community matters. Swapping pages with trusted readers, inviting notes, debating a scene—these are acts of bravery and belonging. Loneliness shrinks when your story is witnessed.
What Writing Has Healed (So Far)
No book fixes a life. But writing has loosened knots I didn’t know I was clenching:
Perfectionism softened. A novel is built of wrong turns. Accepting that on the page helped me accept it elsewhere.
Regret reframed. Old choices are no longer verdicts. They’re context. They’re compost. Stories grow there.
Attention restored. Drafting retrained my focus in a world that fragments it. Twenty minutes in a scene can feel like a long, healing breath.
Closing the Notebook
Photography taught me to pay attention. Novels taught me to stay. Both ask the same quiet, courageous thing: show up, look closer, trust the frame you’ve chosen, and press the shutter—or the full stop—when it feels true.
The Light Between Us helped me make peace with where I’ve been. The Days I Lost is helping me honour the time I still have. If that’s therapy, I’ll happily keep my weekly appointment with the blank page and a strong cup of tea.
If you’re somewhere between your first index card and your fiftieth rewrite, I’m cheering you on. The story you’re telling might just be telling you something back. And that conversation—steady, patient, private at first—can change everything.
