Big Magic

Image via Elizabeth Gilbert

I recently started reading the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and so far I'm loving it! You probably can't really tell from the title, but it's essentially about living a creative life. She has a pretty interesting philosophy regarding ideas, inspiration, and how humans interact with them. I suppose it's technically a self help/ user guide type book, but she doesn't approach it that way. She simply writes about her own experiences and the observations she's gathered from others. Still, it's pretty interesting to learn about someone else's perspective on creativity.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of the famed novel Eat, Pray, Love. I never read the book (sorry, just didn't interest me) and fell asleep during the movie (sorry again)! I had no idea until I started reading this book that it was by the same author. For someone who had a book on the New York Times Best Sellers list for over 200 weeks and then had that book adapted to a mainstream movie (a.k.a. a mega successful writer) to still want to share their creative process is encouraging. She talks about her work with a very humble tone. She doesn't acknowledge a difference between high art and low art. She doesn't think academia is all that important when it comes creativity. And she is also of the belief that anyone has the ability to create because we are all born with it. She explains that in order to live a creative life, you really only need six things: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust, and Divinity. The book is broken down into these six sections. I've just started "Trust" and so far I can relate to most of her opinions on creativity.

Coincidentally (or maybe not), I've recently experienced a new wave of inspiration and motivation. I'm a little more than 3/4's through the book and I can already recommend this book as a good read, regardless of whether or not you think you're "creative" or have any interest in leading a "creative life." Overall I think it's a generally well written book about someone's journey to success, and who wouldn't like to read that?