Big Magic

Big Magic is a non-fiction book, that describes her creative process.

It’ll teach you how to be creative in spite of your fears, how ideas work, where creativity comes from, and how you can make sure your creativity keeps flowing freely.

Here are 3 lessons to get you started:

Let your fears coexist with your passions.
Give yourself permission to create.
Keep your day job to fuel your creative affair.

Lesson 1: Let your fears coexist with your passions.
There’s a lot of talk out there these days that you “have to overcome your fears.” As if somehow, you could do something, and that would magically make them go away forever. That’s not the case. Steven Pressfield has shown us that artists who truly care will always have to face their fears, even long after they’ve become huge successes.

Elizabeth Gilbert agrees. She says instead of overcoming your fears, just get comfortable with them. Let your curiosity take the wheel, and put your fears into the backseat. They’re more than welcome to join the ride and give feedback, but you won’t take any detours because of them, nor let them take the wheel. Your fears are supposed to stay around and remind you of the things that are important to you. Nothing more, nothing less.

Lesson 2: Give yourself permission to create, even if you start at zero.
The thought “I’m going to start a daily blog” sounds great in your head – for about 12 seconds. Then the fears and doubts kick in.

“You’ll run out of things to say after a week.” “You don’t have the discipline to publish daily.” “You’ll produce a ton of crap.”

Ahh, self-talk, where would we be without it? This little conversation is one I had in my own head before starting this very site. But I went ahead and gave myself permission to do it anyway.

Announce to yourself and the world that you’re here to chase your passion, regardless of rejections and reactions. Being authentic is much more important than being original and the latter always follows the former eventually, so don’t worry too much starting out and just get going.

Lesson 3: Keep your day job to fuel your love affair with creativity.
We all know that one hipster guy or girl from high school, who’d spent his or her entire time writing songs and playing the guitar and now plays the bi-weekly show at a local pub, but never got a real job.

That’s the cliché version of “an artist’s life” and it’d best stay that, because it often chokes your creativity, due to the stress of having to pay your bills with your art.

Imagine having an affair with writing, for example. Every day after work, you could lock yourself up in your room and write away, free from worry about paying the bills or where to get the next client.

Nobody can guarantee you that you’ll be successful, and forcing yourself to create something that’ll make you famous and wealthy fast will suck all the fun out of creating. How can you possibly create your best work like that?

What else can you learn from the blinks?
Why ideas are like humans, plants, or animals, and what happens when you reject one and don’t execute it
A funny story about rejection and how it’s all a matter of perspective
Where creativity truly comes from and why that college degree won’t help you with it
The story of the martyr and the trickster
What you should do the next time you hit a creative roadblock
Who would I recommend the Big Magic summary to?
The 32 year old, who thinks she should have it all figured out by now, but is terrified by the fact that she hasn’t, the 43 year old Dad, who’s secretly in love with writing, but has never given himself permission to do so, and anyone who’s tried to turn their art into money and failed.