We recently connected with Alyssa Bell and have shared our conversation below.

Alyssa, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have been blogging for over a decade now, but I have always wanted to write a book. A couple of years ago I finally got serious and began working on an editorial style coffee table book. I spent months perfecting the layout in inDesign, selecting which stories to share, and filling the spaces with my graphics and photography. It was essentially my love letter to the world through the medium of all my creative pursuits. But nine months into the project, my laptop crashed and I lost over 80 pages of work. Yes, I should have backed my work up in more than one place, but I consider it a lesson learned.

I promised my friends and family I would start over; I wouldn’t give up on this project. But the reality is the wind had been taken out of my sails and I couldn’t muster the motivation to try again. For two years I allowed self-doubt and other pursuits keep me from moving this dream forward.

Then I entered 2023 with new resolve. I spent the first half of the year writing and re-writing new chapters. Along the way it began to morph into less of a pretty coffee table book and more of a memoir, filled with real stories and lessons learned the hard way. It is something I am incredibly proud of because I know what it took to make it happen. My plan is to have it published by Spring of 2024, and my desire is that it would offer up a fresh perspective on this very broken, incredibly beautiful world we live in.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Alyssa Bell and I am a writer and a photographer. You can read my blog and get a sneak peek into my life at TheSpaceWeShare.com or you can see some of my work as a freelance photographer at HelloLovelyProject.com. Even though these two pursuits often feel very disconnected from each other, I love it when I am able to marry the two by sharing pictures on my blog or encouraging the beautiful women I have the pleasure of capturing.

When I’m writing at The Space We Share, my desire is to write real life stories that offer up truth and encouragement to my readers. When I’m taking pictures for Hello Lovely Project, my goal is nearly the same–to showcase authentic, beautifully diverse souls while affirming their worth in the process.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Being an artist/creative is a really vulnerable career path, especially when you buy into the lies that we are all in competition with each other. I have always struggled with measuring my worth in comparison to the successful people around me. It has made it incredibly difficult to celebrate others’ successes and even more difficult to see my own. I’ve tried all of the algorithms and reworked my website 100 times to try to cut through the noise and make my voice heard as both a writer and a photographer. But I have found the most freedom in surrendering those fears altogether and just enjoying the process. I have had to throw metrics out the window countless times when I see other photographers thriving while I am barely staying afloat. I have been frustrated, discouraged, and about a hundred other emotions throughout this process, but I know deep down that true success isn’t about how many likes I get or clients I am able to book in a season. It’s not about how many readers or subscribers I have on my blog. At the end of the day, I have to ask myself: am I doing my best work? Am I putting out something that I can be proud of (regardless of the opinions of others)?

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Creativity has always just been a medium to me, a conduit of a bigger message. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how profound my words are or how captivating my pictures; if I am not speaking truth and loving well, I just wasting time. My mission in both my photography and my blog is to help others see the beauty in themselves and the lives they have been blessed with.

Contact Info:

• Website: Thespaceweshare.com Hellolovelyproject.com
• Instagram: @thespaceweshare @hellolovelyproject
• Facebook: @thespaceweshare @hellolovelyproject

Image Credits
Alyssa Bell (Hello Lovely Project)