Thoughts on Big Magic:Creative Living Beyond Fear By Elizabeth Gilbert

I'll be the first to admit that I've been crawling out of a creative funk lately. I haven't really felt like making things for months and I kind of fell into this hole of procrastinating making anything until I absolutely had to. I set myself a few goals recently and signed up for a market happening this month in part so that I would have a deadline that I would have to adhere to in order to get things done. This has gotten my butt in gear a little bit and I'm getting back into the flow of making something every day.

While working on my market stuff, I've been listening to a lot of audio books. I am often inspired by books I'm currently reading and my latest read has been Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. You may know this author from her popular book Eat, Pray, Love (which I have never actually read). I added this particular book to my TBR after looking up books for enneagram type 4s (we can talk all about enneagrams and art in another post sometime). It was finally available from my local library via Libby, so I picked it up and finished it in 2 days (it's pretty short to be fair).

"I believe that creativity is a source of enchantment." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

One part of the book that stuck with me is Gilbert’s belief that ideas are magical. They seek out someone to bring them to life, and if you’re not ready, they’ll move on to someone else. She argues that this is why so many people have similar ideas for books and why multiple discovery happens. An example she gives is a friend of hers having the same plot idea for a book that she had years prior and never got a chance to finish. I'm not sure about ideas specifically seeking people out to fulfill them, but I do think there is something magical about taking an idea and turning it into a tangible thing. I love having something in my head and the satisfaction of seeing it come to life on paper exactly how I envisioned it would be. Like, I can take something that doesn't even exist yet and make it a reality. That's pretty magical to me. That feeling of finishing something you've been working on for ages, magical. An idea popping into your head after months of feeling uninspired... maybe ideas are magic in a sense. But what stops so many people from actually following through on these magic ideas?

"When courage dies creativity dies with it." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Big Magic dives headfirst into the topic of fear getting in the way of creativity and how to not allow perfectionism to get in the way of inspiration. It seems to me that fear/anxiety tend to be a theme when it comes to books about creativity and self-improvement. Fear of wasting time, disappointing others, not being good enough. I knew it would touch on fear (it’s right there in the title), but I didn’t expect such a direct confrontation with so many of the thoughts that have been rattling around in my own head lately.

It made me realize how much I’d been letting fear run the show. I kept telling myself I didn’t have enough time to make things the way I wanted them to look. I doubted my ideas, convinced they were too mediocre or that the market is oversaturated. I tried to make everything perfect and when it didn't come out how I wanted it to, I got frustrated and gave up. I would start a project and then run out of steam to work on it and become uninspired. I chalked it up to being out of good ideas, but the truth is, I was just struggling with not being happy in other areas of life, and that struggle was bleeding into my creative process. These are all things I had been letting get in my way and had been making excuses for.

Fear will always show up, especially when you're doing something vulnerable or new, but you can't let fear run the show, let it be a passing thought and move on. If you aren't brave enough to try, nothing happens. I wrote about that in college and still struggle to practice what I preach. It's easy in theory to not let fear take over, but harder to actually follow through when you want everything to turn out a certain way.

"Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

The author believes perfectionism is a form of fear and this kills creativity. Not everything is meant to be perfect. Creating at all is the point. Let it be messy. Let it be flawed. Let it exist. Being done is better than being perfect. I watched a video of Hank Green's once where he talks about having to be 80% happy with something before calling it done. And that really resonated with me. I tried so hard to be 100% all the time, but because of that video, I started letting 80% be good enough. And guess what? Nobody else sees it as unfinished. That's just another fear I let in. Elizabeth Gilbert encourages artists to finish work whether they think it is good or not. It is more important to create something than to worry about making that thing good. Done is better than perfect.

"Whatever is bad for you is certainly bad for your work." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Gilbert talks a bit about the almost fantasy of being a tormented artist. And I feel we've seen that recently in media too with Taylor Swift's album, The Tortured Poets Department. This idea of romanticizing the depressed, seductive, tortured artist persona VS the reality of what it's like living that way. The reality of living that way is exhausting and unsustainable. Creativity doesn’t have to come from a place of pain. Treating your body and mind poorly will be reflected in the artwork you're trying to create. So take care of yourself, make what you want to make, and remember to not let other people get in the way of what you're creating. You don’t have to be a “professional” artist, or have a degree, or monetize your work. If you want to make something, that’s reason enough. You’re allowed to make art just because you want to. Creativity does not need to be justified.

"art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege" - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Overall I give the book 3/5 stars. If these are things you've never thought about before, then this might be the book for you. If you like the author and want a little more of a look into her mindset, then you'll probably enjoy this. I tend to prefer books that say something a bit more unique than this, but that doesn't make it a bad book by any means. Reading Big Magic felt a bit like a creative reset. It wasn't life-changing, but is is a reminder of why I make things in the first place. It gave me permission to show up imperfectly, to create just for the joy of it, and to let go of the pressure to be brilliant. (Plus the audio book is narrated by Gilbert herself, which adds a personal touch).