Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

It was the subtitle of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear that caught my attention. I like books on writing and creativity. I missed the name Elizabeth Gilbert, probably because I have never read Eat, Pray, Love. But having read this book I may go back and read that, which will probably make me one of the few people to read them in that order.

The simple idea of Big Magic is in the subtitle. Being creative shouldn’t be scary, but for many of us it is terrifying. Sometimes it’s the creation itself, sometimes it’s what you might find and often it is sharing or the self destruction that is so often glamorized. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about all of those things, and while some of them hit harder than others for me, they were all important.

More often than not for me the hardest part of writing is sharing my work. It’s part of the reason that I have a blog. By putting stuff out regularly for people to see it helps to push down that fear. I often ask for reviews, but I avoid reading them most of the time. She talks about that a fair amount, and while some of the advice is things that I have heard before, it was all useful. But perhaps the most important thing was a story she told of a woman who came up to her and told her that her book had changed her life because the story of her having to get a restraining order on her husband gave the reader the courage to do the same. The problem is that she never wrote about that because it never happened. She tells another story of having a story rejected by an editor, then later after she had an agent, the same editor telling her how much she loved it. The point of both being that the reader brings things to the story and you can’t control that. She also points out that your opinion of my work is none of my business. It is a good point.

This is useful for far more than writers. I have several artist friends who I want to get this book for. That is because she talks about the value of being creative outside of the monetary value. She talks about letting your creative side be free of the strain of economic pressures and working to support it because it will make it better.

So far, I haven’t really touched on the meaning of the title. But I do like the way she describes creativity as something outside of yourself. She makes the claims that ideas are alive. That they exist separate from people and are seeking someone to allow them to enter this world. This is another way to give freedom and an important one because whether you believe it, believing in it is useful. If people don’t love your idea that’s fine. It was never actually yours. If your idea fails, that’s fine because you didn’t fail the idea did.

I loved this book. It’s a book I intend to read again. I almost did immediately but i think there is more value in thinking about it for a bit of time and then going back. But in the meantime I may have to read Eat, Pray, Love because Elizabeth Gilbert is someone who I want to spend more time with, but for now I’m going to convince one of my ideas to come out and play.