Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear Paperback – September 27, 2016

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is a must-read for anyone looking to embrace their creativity without fear or self-doubt. With her warm, conversational tone, Gilbert offers insightful advice, personal anecdotes, and motivational wisdom on how to live a creative life—whether you're an artist, writer, or simply someone who wants to pursue passions without fear holding you back.✅ Pros:Encouraging & Uplifting: Inspires readers to create without fear of failure.Relatable & Engaging Writing: Feels like a conversation with a supportive friend.Practical Advice: Helps shift your mindset around creativity.Perfect for All Creatives: Whether you’re a beginner or experienced, this book resonates.⚠️ Cons:Not a Step-by-Step Guide: More philosophical than instructional.Some Ideas Feel Repetitive: Certain concepts are emphasized multiple times.Final Verdict:Big Magic is a beautiful, empowering book that encourages you to embrace curiosity, let go of fear, and create freely. If you need a push to pursue your passions, this book is the perfect inspiration! Highly recommended!

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert was not exactly what I was expecting when I purchased the Kindle version on the day of its release.I have been a huge fan of Ms. Gilbert since Eat, Pray, Love and have devoured all of her books up to and including The Signature of All Things that I purchased a signed copy of. This is how much I adore the author. I feel that she speaks volumes to me through her writing and have learned so much about life and myself from her words.When I started reading Big Magic, I was excited after waiting for months following all of the hype on her Facebook page and website. I was thrilled to get it on the day of its release.After the first few pages, though, I was disenchanted and rather disappointed. I am not sure why, but the words in the first chapters did not immediately resonate with me and I, hesitantly and unceremoniously, returned the book for a refund. I know, I know, this is a sin and unheard of for a true fan of this wonderful author to return her book.Then something MAGICAL happened. Seriously, folks, I cannot make this stuff up ...Amazon normally removes the title and its contents from my device when I return an e-book. When I went to sync my Kindle application, Big Magic was still on it. My conscience (or something bigger than myself?) kept prompting me to read the book and give it one more chance. I kept telling myself that it just wasn't going to get better and to not bother...After a few days, I relented to this continually nagging voice and started reading the book where I had left off a few days earlier. Mind you, I had already received a refund on the book and certainly was going to have Amazon manually remove it from my digital orders if I still could not get into the book with giving it a second look.I kept reading past the first few chapters and before I knew it, I had read over half of the book - ingesting every word, every sentence and every paragraph. I lost some sleep last night reading it into the wee hours of the morning. After reading over half the book and realizing that Amazon was not auto-magically removing it from my device, I went back and re-purchased the book. Because, 1) that was absolutely the right thing to do - to pay for a book that I was, indeed, reading and 2) since I am an author as well, I know how difficult it is to release a book and get returns and/or negative reviews when you work your heart out on a new release - so repurchasing it was a no-brainer for me.I am a person who has a difficult time with being creative or allowing creativity to flow within me and Big Magic opened my eyes to the creative process (or at least the author's creative process) of writing. I struggle with giving myself permission to take the time to write and also with giving myself permission to fail.The chapter on perfectionism is a gold-mine of information and truly spoke directly to me. The other analogies and lessons in the book are geared towards writers, artists and the like, but can easily be applied to any occupation in life. The key is to apply these principles in everything that you attempt in life and watch the results turn into positive experiences.The biggest realization from the book is that all of us are creators or makers, no matter what our occupations are and we need to own whatever it is in life that makes us who we are. I see now how this makes a difference in my own life.I have to whole-heartedly say that I was completely WRONG about the book after reading the first few pages and am so glad that the Universe tugged at me to try the book again. I am happy that I did go back a second time as the words finally resonated with me even after my initial resistance to them.Big Magic was working Big Time and I am thankful that I listened! Thank you Ms. Gilbert for writing Big Magic!

Q: What is creativity?A: The relationship between a human being and the mysteries of the universe.Thus proclaims the epigraph of Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Immediately, the reader is invited into a space not only for practical help and encouragement but also for playful exploration of Gilbert's creative mythos. Still, the book grounds itself in reality as much as mysticism, and with each essay she reminds us of the eternal paradox of creative living: that creativity means nothing, but it also means everything.In Gilbert's mythology, ideas--as literal spiritual manifestation--seek those of us who would be willing to listen to them, and then urge us onward to bring them into the world through our own creative energies. It is up to us whether we would accept that urging. The overall sentiment reads a bit like the description of classical muses without the necessity of religious dogma.Unsurprisingly, this collection of interrelated essays reads more as spiritual text than it does as a management or self-help manual (although a reader may find plenty of help within its pages). Gilbert's gift for parables shines in each of the essays in the collection. She intersperses poetic tributes to Ideas and Inspiration with down-to-earth stories about failure and success and about letting oneself go in service of a higher creative power. Within these stories she weaves a framework of creative morality by which she encourages all people to live.Mysticism aside, Gilbert's storytelling and energetic recasting of long-recited platitudes into a distinctly playful mold make for entertaining reading. For instance, Gilbert often waxes poetically on serving creativity solely for itself, and on using it as a source of joy rather than misery. One of my favorite moments comes in the essay "Have an Affair," in which she suggests sneaking off with your creativity in the middle of the workday as you would to engage in an illicit rendezvous. (I have every intention of taking her advice and dressing myself up for just such an affair in the near future.)Yet right on the heels of Gilbert's playful but spiritually-meaningful revelry comes a healthy dose of cynicism. She defines creativity as a mystical and magical process through which inspiration becomes manifest in the world, but reminds her readers that, at the end of the day, what is brought forth may be worth nothing more than the experiences you learn making it. She warns against spending excessive time or money on formal education and dismisses them as an often injudicious quest for validation of our own creativity. The artistic life, she argues, is one far more likely to bring poverty than riches. She discourages incurring unnecessary (and oftentimes useless) debt in the name of a career that may never fully blossom. She likewise reminds her readers that she herself continued working full-time at a variety of jobs before the bestseller Eat, Pray, Love became a hugely successful phenomenon.In some ways I feel as if Gilbert is my long lost evil twin: while I'm a skeptic and a cynic who desperately wants to believe in magic, she has the heart of the truest believer while keeping a foothold on the realities of artistic struggle. (Perhaps then I am the evil one.) Though the book did not enthrall me to the point of racing from the beginning to the end, the end of each essay left me afraid to put the book away, lest I miss another one of Aunt Elizabeth's wonderful and wonder-filled stories.At the very least, Gilbert reminds all of us that creativity is more a work of heart and of soul than of intellect, and that it should always be an act of play rather than a source of struggle. She argues that the path of the miserable alcoholic artist as a romantic image needs to be swept away. Instead, we must engage with our creativity the way you might a friendly sprite in the darkest of nights. You sneak away with it to do something fun, wonderful, even magical, and when it fills your soul no more you set it free.In many ways, this book says nothing that we haven't heard before. Creativity is for everyone. Anyone can be an artist, but not everyone should make it a career. Hard work and diligence are as important as inspiration. Be creative for yourself and not for anyone else. But no matter how many times we've heard these stories, we've not yet heard Gilbert tell them, and for that reason alone the book is worth the read. Her mission, as she herself states it, is to remind us that we need no one's permission to live a creative life. We just have to have the courage to live it.

Got this book for school--an easy read, very interesting too! Great quality!

Just a few pages in, but remembering why I liked this book. It nudges you to go ahead and do the things you want to do, to take a chance. I find myself laughing at how the author manhandles that voice inside our head that tells us we shouldn’t even try, besting it with humor and determination.