Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

“Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”

living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

Thinking about work on a longer piece as a journey of following one's nose with a bit of a map. I wouldn't set off on a months-long hike without some way of keeping my bearings. I need to overcome my perception that too much planning kills my inspiration. There is still plenty to be curious about."

They called it your genius—your guardian deity, the conduit of your inspiration. Which is to say, the Romans didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that an exceptionally gifted person had a genius.

I like this idea. A lot. Its easier to befriend and work with a genius, to call a genius out to play, than to try to be one.

Go back far enough and you will find people who were not consumers, people who were not sitting around passively waiting for stuff to happen to them. You will find people who spent their lives making things. This is where you come from. This is where we all come from. Human beings have been creative beings for a really long time—long enough and consistently enough that it appears to be a totally natural impulse.

Absolutely. I suspect that a sense that one has nothing to contribute is the reason so many people creatively check out. And it's not just making art pieces. It extends to being part of solving a business or legal problem, or assembling a vehicle, or fixing a leak.

Keep in mind that for most of history people just made things, and they didn’t make such a big freaking deal out of it.

I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life.

I love this so much. Its so freeing to be released from the goal of supporting oneself on ones creative output as a measure of success or even a goal.

he now possessed the most interesting-looking ox in town. For what? Just because. Because a decorated ox is better than a non-decorated ox, obviously!

This is about a man who decorated the hirnsof his ox. I could easily become one of those people who has decorated her whole yard with bottle trees, etc. Seeing Dalí's Theater Museum in Figueres, Catalan, changed my understanding of what creativity can look like. He saw opportunity in every nook and cranny of that place.

Stop treating your creativity like it’s a tired, old, unhappy marriage (a grind, a drag) and start regarding it with the fresh eyes of a passionate lover. Even if you have only fifteen minutes a day in a stairwell alone with your creativity, take

“Dress for the novel you want to write” is another way of saying it. Seduce the Big Magic and it will always come back to you—the same way a raven is captivated by a shiny, spinning thing.

Hmm. How does my inner graphic novelist dress? How does she eat, and exercise, and organize her time?

An abiding stereotype of creativity is that it turns people crazy. I disagree: Not expressing creativity turns people crazy. (“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”—Gospel of Thomas.)

(“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”—Gospel of Thomas.)

The portrayal of serial killers as artists has always disturbed me. Weird myth.

was a far better writer than I’d been before I began

But creative living can be an amazing vocation, if you have the love and courage and persistence to see it that way. I suggest that this may be the only sanity-preserving way to approach creativity. Because nobody ever told us it would be easy, and uncertainty is what we sign up for when we say that we want to live creative lives.

one. I saw it as proof that you must never surrender, that no doesn’t always mean no, and that miraculous turns of fate can happen to those who persist in showing up.

th

As Robin puts it, “The exchange of love between earth and people calls forth the creative gifts of both. The earth is not indifferent to us, but rather calling for our gifts in return for hers—the reciprocal nature of life and creativity.”

That last line fragment.

the arrogance of belonging.)

I belong to this club because I say I do.

to suggest that nobody ever made valuable art unless they were in active emotional distress is not only untrue, it’s also kind of sick.

Sometimes I think that the difference between a tormented creative life and a tranquil creative life is nothing more than the difference between the word awful and the word interesting.

Please save us from all the people who get melodramatic about suffering for one's art. The most destructive thing any teacher ever said to me was, "If you can do anything else, do it! Only pursue this if you can't do anything else." Like most humans, I am good at more than one thing. Don't ask yourself to put all your passion into one box. Let it flow and your various interests will feed each other.

But do not let your ego totally run the show, or it will shut down the show. Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master—because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward.

It's hard to strike a balance.

You made it; you get to put it out there. Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it.

This is my task. To stop pointing out what is lacking in my own work. Why take away the viewer's pleasure? Julia Childs also says this about presenting what one has cooked. So it must be true!