Elizabeth Gilbert's Blog, page 75
April 11, 2014
What’s the book that kept you up lately? You know the drill. You keep saying t…
What's the book that kept you up lately?
You know the drill. You keep saying to yourself, "Just one more chapter…just one more chapter…just one more chapter…" — until the sun is coming up, and you're still eating pages like they're Girl Scout Cookies.
How many nights in my life this has been me! Starting with Nancy Drew books at age 8 (the classic under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight trick) and continuing right up till last week, when I got hijacked at 2am by J.K. Rowling's THE CASUAL VACANCY.
Basically, I've been sleep deprived by books forever. And happy for it. Bags under the eyes are worth stories in the mind. Anyhow, you can sleep when you're dead, as they say…
HAPPY READING,
LG
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SOAT and an equestrian friend…so lovely!
SOAT and an equestrian friend…so lovely!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Alma made the trip to Kentucky via Pony Express and arrived today, delivered by a horse named Pal. He needed some rest after his long journey and is planning on relaxing with this great book before traveling on his way. Alma arrived in time for the Kentucky Derby festivities. Me thinks she will be a perfect fit whether she chooses the elegance of Millionaire's Row or the wildness of the Infield.
Richard
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April 10, 2014
Happy reading! :) LG
Happy reading!
LG
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A friend of this page named Jenny Williams made this for me yesterday, inspired…
A friend of this page named Jenny Williams made this for me yesterday, inspired by a post I wrote this week about the importance of keeping your hand in a creative endeavor in order to preserve your sanity. SO lovely! Thank you, Jenny!
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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TICKETS ARE OFFICIALLY ON SALE FOR OPRAH’S “THE LIFE YOU WANT” TOUR! Dear Ones…
TICKETS ARE OFFICIALLY ON SALE FOR OPRAH'S "THE LIFE YOU WANT" TOUR!
Dear Ones —
An amazing thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Oprah Winfrey asked me to join her as a speaker on her 8-city inspirational tour this autumn.
My answer, which I arrived at in 1/1000th of a second, was a resounding YES!!!!!
She's never done anything like this before — a series of full-out stadium tours, each one a weekend long, packed with once-in-a-lifetime speakers, entertainers and trailblazers.
It's gonna be epic. And I'm gonna be there.
Get your tickets here, friends:
You can also follow the tour on Facebook right here:
http://ift.tt/1sFL3S1
Heart,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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April 9, 2014
This made me cry… God bless the University of Virginia men’s swim team, folks…
This made me cry…
God bless the University of Virginia men's swim team, folks. They just released this photo in honor of their school's Diversity Day.
When I think of how much the world has changed in terms of tolerance and grace since I was in college 25 years ago…well. It staggers the imagination. To put it mildly, such a photo would have been an absolute impossibility in 1990, even in New York City.
Wow, Viriginia. WOW.
Big heart,
LG
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MEET ELOISA JAMES/MARY BLY! Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon…
MEET ELOISA JAMES/MARY BLY!
Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon with my friend Mary Bly, who is also known as the romance novelist Eloisa James. Mary teaches English at Fordham, and I had a great time yesterday afternoon talking to her fantastic students.
I adore Mary. She's a super brilliant soul (Harvard, Oxford AND Yale — yowza) who is not only a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance studies, but also, under her pen name, is a slammingly successful bestselling romance novelist. She's pretty awesome.
She also saved me during a rough patch while I was writing THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS. I was about to write the first "binding closet" scene, and found myself balking. (Those of you who have read the book know what I'm talking about, but I'll try not to spoil it for others!) I knew that this element in Alma was essential to her character, but I didn't know how to describe it without humiliating her — as she had become very dear to me. I was afraid it would derail the book. But I also knew that if I didn't establish Alma's extreme sense of physical longing, then other aspects of the book would make no sense as we went along. I was stuck.
So I took Mary out to lunch to ask her opinion. (She has written A LOT of sex scenes in her life, people.) She gave me a simple piece of advice, which not only works for writing about fictional sex, but works for writing about nearly anything in the novelistic realm.
She said, "Just ask yourself honestly what your character would actually do. Then let her do it."
Well, I knew what Alma would do. Alma was a scientist, an explorer, a woman of earth and desire and body. Alma never left ANYTHING in her world unexamined. Yes, I knew exactly what she would do.
I let her do it.
Thanks, Mary/Eloisa!
Heart,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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SOAT in Hawaii a la Captain Cook…lovely!
SOAT in Hawaii a la Captain Cook…lovely!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Took your latest with me to Hawaii. Just came down from Mauna Kea. It was magical. Aloha!!
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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A HAPPINESS JAR from a Romanian friend…a first! And for anyone who doesn’t know…
A HAPPINESS JAR from a Romanian friend…a first! And for anyone who doesn't know what a HAPPINESS JAR IS? Here you go:
http://ift.tt/1itDGos
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Hei Liz !
Happiness Jar in Romania , because you inspired me.
I love you !
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April 8, 2014
Dear Ones – A few months ago, I noticed that I was becoming irritable and scrit…
Dear Ones -
A few months ago, I noticed that I was becoming irritable and scritchy and judge-y with my friends and family. I was doing a pretty good job keeping my thoughts to myself, but my thoughts were not kind. Nobody was good enough, everyone was annoying, and why can't these people get it together, for chrissake…
Such were my lovely daily thoughts.
When I finally noticed how negative I was becoming, I made myself stop and look around at what was going on in my life that was basically turning me into Mrs. Kravitz.
Then I figured it out: I hadn't written anything for over year — not since completing the final edits on THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS. I had a new idea for a novel in my head, but had zero time to work on it, since I was so busy traveling all over the universe, promoting Alma & Co. Looking ahead into my ongoing busy schedule, I'd decided that probably early 2015 would be a good quiet time to devote myself to working on my new book. And that had been my plan.
Which was crazy, actually, and seemed now to be making me crazy.
I am writer. If I have a story in me that I'm not able to tell, things will start going wrong all over my life. If I have a story in my head and I tell it, "I'll get to you in 2015," that story will start to rebel, start to act out, start to claw at the walls. That's when the shit gets dark in my world.
Because having a creative mind is something like a owning Border Terrier; It needs a job. And if you don't give it a job, it will INVENT a job (which will involve tearing something up.) Which why I have learned over the years that if I am not actively creating something, chances are I am about to start actively destroying something.
And that ain't good.
So I set aside 30 minutes a day — 30 tiny minutes — to devote to my new novel. And I've managed to keep that up for the last four months, even amid all the traveling, all the speaking tours, all the other business.
30 minutes to run my Border Terrier fast and hard, until it quiets down. Surprisingly, it works.
It's amazing how much progress I'm making already. Amazing how much time you DON'T need, to start making something. As John Updike once said, "Some of the best novels ever written were written in an hour a day."
There will come a time (2015!!!!) when I will clear out my schedule and retreat from the world and devote myself completely to the new book, but for now? I am already starting to create it, so it won't start to destroy me.
And immediately, like magic: I've been finding myself acting a lot nicer to my people.
Do you have some unattended creative work inside you, that is causing you agony? (Or even just causing you to act like a bitch?) Listen up: If it needs to be told, it will chafe at you until you let it free. Which is not good for ANYONE.
So start.
You may not think you have the time right now to attend to it.
Make the time.
30 minutes a day.
Love
LG
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