Book Review of Big Magic By Elizabeth Gilbert /Nightline Segment

UPDATE:

Here is the link to Nightline segment:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/eat-pray-love-author-back-big-magic-33998317

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As you may already know (since I blogged about it all summer here, here, and here), I was chosen to participate in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast.  The podcast expanded on themes found in her new book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. 

Nightline, on ABC, will be airing a segment including an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert about Big Magic and my experience with the Magic Lessons podcast.  Eek! How exciting!  The segment will air on Wednesday, September 23.  Check local listings for the time, but in Michigan and New York, it will air at 12:30am.   

I was given a copy of Big Magic* which comes out on September 22^nd and is published by Riverhead Books.  I L.O.V.E. this book.  Love it!  I highlighted passages and tagged pages.  I was reading it as if I was studying for a big exam and did not want to miss one juicy bit of insightful inspiration.

As the title implies, it is about how to live a creative life without fear.  She examines the components of a creative life and how fear (or more accurately our fight with fear) gets in the way of embracing our creativity.

For instance, she personifies Fear as Creativity’s "conjoined twin."  So if we try to kill fear, it will inevitably kill our creativity. Elizabeth sets boundaries for Fear that she delivers in a speech directly to Fear before starting a new project.  How cool is that?! This metaphor totally reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Eat Pray Love where she is meditating in the ashram in India and while meditating, invites each fear into her heart and accepts it with love.

Elizabeth also stresses the importance of living a balanced life while embracing creativity.  She talks about how people often follow the “tortured artist” model of creative living, and offers a different approach. Instead of thinking an artist needs to suffer, she suggests finding a path rooted in joy, curiosity, and self-forgiveness.

She talks about how balanced, curious people are consistently able to *do* the actual work, the real doing and making of our creative visions, instead of dancing around it with Fear.

As Elizabeth says, we become partners with Inspiration and Creativity as opposed to becoming their adversaries. This just made so much sense to me.  I would feel selfish for taking time away from the preexisting contracts in my life.  But when I made my contract with Inspiration to write my book, it felt concrete and solid, like any other contract I had with a tangible human being.

 The best part is that she doesn’t just talk about these ideas in a lofty, idealized way; she gives concrete examples of how she has worked these issues out in her own life.

It’s not very often that a creative person opens up so much about their approach to creative living.   I feel that most people live creative lives under a veil of mystery, eluding that the work magically becomes finished products.

Elizabeth talks openly about the choices she makes when she’s entered a new contract with Inspiration. She talks about her failures and how she reframes them.   Elizabeth also talks about how she truly defines success as a creative person (spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with money).

Most importantly, Elizabeth urges us to remain curious about life.  Regardless of whether you perceive yourself as creative or not, by stepping away from fear and towards curiosity, we are able to live juicy, interesting, and fulfilling lives.

Big Magic is in stores September 22nd. 

**I was not compensated for this post.  I just think that everyone should know about this awesome book.

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Since I am committing more time to writing my book, my blog might not be as active.

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