I recently re-read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. The tagline of Big Magic is ‘Creative Living Beyond Fear’ and it falls under the self-help category.
The book contains essays and stories about different facets of ourselves (courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust & divinity) which impact our creativity. The book talks a lot about overcoming and working with our fear to live a more creative life. What I love most about this book is the suggestion that we can find big and small ways to live creatively every single day to improve our lives.
Big Magic…First Time Around
I first read Big Magic in 2015 just after it’s release. In 2016 I got the opportunity to see Elizabeth Gilbert speak as part of the Auckland Book Festival in New Zealand. I flew up to Auckland and went along with my friend Kelly (Queen of Books!). It was the end of the Big Magic tour. Liz spoke about her tour rather than her planned talk and it was wonderful to sit and listen to her weave her stories. Above all the biggest takeaway from her talk was remembering to ask myself the question “What Am I Most Excited About Right Now?” Now, it’s something I think about often and I even use it as a prompt in my Quarterly Reviews.
More Big Magic
So I was excited to attend a workshop with Liz Gilbert back in May. I’d booked my place about a year prior. (Due to the workshop originally supposed to take place in September 2017 and being rescheduled to May). I started to re-read the book in preparation for the workshop. Even though it had been a while since I first read the book it felt familiar and I enjoyed re-reading it. I used a highlighter to mark interesting quotes like this one…
“Most of all, be ready. Keep your eyes open. Listen. Follow your curiosity. Ask questions. Sniff around. Remain open. Trust in the miraculous truth that new and marvellous ideas are looking for human collaborators every single day.”
The workshop involved writing letters to and from the different facets of ourselves to discover what creativity meant to us. It was a fascinating and emotional experience to be in a room with so many other people keen to dig into their creativity and tell their stories.
The workshop was a great accompaniment to the book but even if you don’t have the opportunity to see Liz speak in person I would recommend you grab a copy of Big Magic and read it.
And if I’ve still not convinced you that you need to read this book – I’ve found a 20 minute video where Liz Gilbert reads an excerpt from Big Magic. I hope this convinces you!
Have you read Big Magic? Or any of Elizabeth Gilbert’s other work? What have you been reading lately?