flecks of gold

a year of living artfully

I’m always surprised by how much can change in a year.

This time last year, I decided to share my writing publicly. While I had attempted to create a blog 15 years prior, this time felt different. It meant I was finally willing to share my work with the people closest to me. It meant I was ready to honor a childhood dream of becoming a writer, not with the expectation that it would lead anywhere in particular, but with a simple commitment to give myself permission to sit down, write, and share what felt like it wanted to be shared.

In many ways, I was terrified. All of the familiar inner dialogue surfaced, questioning whether I had anything meaningful to say, along with the imposter syndrome that often accompanies the act of creating. At the same time, there was something else. Time. Experience. An inner knowing that enough life had been lived to begin trusting what wanted to come through. For whatever reason, I felt inclined to share insights shaped by my own experiences about life, love, identity, mindfulness, and creativity, a subject that has remained at the forefront of my life.

There is something to be said about arriving at a place where you begin to let go of what other people think and choose instead to risk uncertainty in order to do the thing that makes you come alive. To move toward what feels most congruent with who you are, even if you do not yet know where it will lead.

Alongside the decision to begin sharing my writing on Substack, I also stepped into a year of living artfully. What emerged was not a linear story, but a lyrical memoir that traces how I came to practice Living Artfully across four seasons of a single year. Divided into 24 entries, each chapter began to form a mosaic rather than a traditional narrative. A collection of moments. A body of work shaped by returning again and again to the page.

Here is what I have come to understand. When you choose to follow what calls you, especially beyond the confines of what you think is possible, something begins to reveal itself. Not all at once, of course, and not in a straight line. But in glimpses and threads of possibility.

In what I have come to call flecks of gold.

They appear when you stay close to what’s knocking at your heart’s door. When you return. When you continue to show up for the art that wants to be made, even when it feels uncertain or incomplete. Over time, those threads become directional. What once felt like a loose idea becomes a path. Doorways begin to reveal themselves. Possibilities emerge that you could not have planned.

This is why I believe so deeply in pursuing our creative aspirations. Not because they guarantee a specific outcome, but because they change us. They ask us to listen more closely, to trust more deeply, to be fully present, and to create without needing to know where it will all lead. In many ways, the creative journey is synonymous with our human journey. And in this way, we become the protagonists of our own lives.

Today, I am sharing the result of that year.

Flecks of Gold.

A lyrical memoir of living artfully across four seasons. A deeply personal and intimate body of work that came into being by choosing not to abandon what was asking to be made.

If there is something calling you, an idea, a project, a nudge to create something, follow it. Stay with it. See what happens when you continue to return to the thing that is beckoning your attention.

You might be surprised by what appears.

To the friends and family who have supported and encouraged me along this journey, thank you for your love. And to the newfound friends and co-conspirators in creativity I have connected with over this last year, you inspire me. Let’s continue to do the thing that bridges connection and meaning by living artfully.

Hugs.

xx Alana

You can order Flecks of Gold now in both paperback and e-book. Order Here