Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic Instagram Photo from @thelizdiaries taken at Union Square Barnes & Noble in NYC

Can I just take a moment to say how much I love Elizabeth Gilbert? I freaking love this woman!

Ok now that we got that out of the way can we talk about her last book called Big Magic? I freaking love this book!

I'm all about following your dreams and living your best life possible and the main reason I love and admire this writer so much (can we say girl crush?) is because she is such a huge advocate of those things. In Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how living creatively is not only important, but necessary. As she says, "a creative life is an amplified life, it's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life and a hell of a more interesting life. Living in this manner continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you is a fine art in and of itself because creative living is where the big magic will always abide." 

The best part about this book is how realistic Elizabeth Gilbert is about living a creative life. Doing so does not mean quitting your job, your family and your friends to go live in seclusion to write or paint or do whatever art it is you want to pursue. You also don't have to get yourself into debt by getting a degree from some fancy Liberal Arts college. Nor does creativity have to be painful or torturous. All of these romanticized ideas of what a creative person is suppossed to be are not always true and one key thing to also keep in mind is that there is an endless list of things that fall under the creativity spectrum. In the book Elizabeth Gilbert gives an example of a friend of hers whose creative outlet is ice skating.

The second best part about this book is that Elizabeth Gilbert explains that although fear is an inevitable part of our lives, it is not a bad thing necessarily. She brings this up fairly early in the book because people come up with all kinds of excuses of why they are not creative and more often than not what really lurks under those excuses is fear. Just plain old fear. It is ok to acknowledge fear and even welcome it, however, it is not ok for fear to control any part of your creative process as she puts it. 

I was lucky enough to see Elizabeth Gilbert on the first day of this book's tour last September in New York City and it was a dream come true. Unfortunately, she did not do any book signings, but I was able to purchase a pre-signed copy of Big Magic and listen to Elizabeth Gilbert speak about creativity and then do a Q & A and let me tell you that she is just as amazing and authentic in person as she is on TV and in her books. Fortunately, Barnes and Noble recorded a part of that evening as you can see in the video below. (I freaking love the internet!)

"Your own reasons to make art are reason enough. Create whatever causes revolution in your heart." 

So what will you create?

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time!

-Liz