Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Gilbert explains how when she was 16, she “took vows” to dedicate her life to writing, but without focusing on whether she was successful and without deadlines. She kept that promise, writing every day in her twenties. She struggled, forced herself to write, imitated others, and progressed through persistence. She notes that people don’t need to start early in life, like she did. Some start late, such as her friend Winifred, who at 80 began studying Mesopotamia and became an expert. People can learn at any age.

Gilbert continued writing and learning and noticed patterns, particularly in relation to anxiety and fear. She realized that people are supposed to partner with inspiration because inspiration wants to work with them (147). She describes a bucket metaphor from Irish author Seamus Heaney, who said that writing poetry is like “lowering a bucket only halfway down a well, coming up time and again with nothing but empty air” (148). With time, one will eventually hit water.

In her twenties, Gilbert had a writer friend who craved success and was despondent about not getting his work published. Gilbert realized that these failures are part of creativity: “Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process. The fun part [...] is when you’re actually creating something wonderful, and everything’s going great, and everyone loves it, and you’re flying high. But such instants are rare” (149). American writer Mark Manson said the secret to discovering one’s purpose is to answer: “What’s your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?” (150). Every endeavor has negative aspects, and people need to figure out what negativity they are okay with. Gilbert’s writer friend wasn’t willing to deal with this negativity, and he stopped writing.

Gilbert cautions creative people to not stop working a regular job, explaining that she only quit hers after Eat Pray Love became a success. She did not want to depend on her writing financially because the pressure might kill her creative impulse. Many people only feel like real artists if they make money from their art, and if this doesn’t happen, they have financial problems or stop creating. Gilbert says that people must also not say that their creativity is more important than finances. In addition, working a day job offers the freedom to be creative. Authors who kept working while writing include American authors Toni Morrison and Ann Patchett and British author J. K. Rowling.

Gilbert tells a story about a man in India whose only important asset was an ox. He painted the ox’s horns, decorated them with bells, and made the ox appealing for no reason than to be creative. Others should follow this example and create for no reason.

Gilbert describes a letter American author Herman Melville wrote to American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville said that he wished he had more time to work on Moby-Dick, a complaint many creative people have. In the end, he found the time anyways. Gilbert likens creativity to people who have an affair and make time for sex. Creatives should treat their projects that way: Find short periods to be creative and make time just like lovers would.

Similarly, Gilbert describes how the title character in Anglo Irish writer Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) would dress up and make himself attractive to inspiration when he felt less creative. Gilbert has used this ploy to “seduce creativity back to my side” (163-64). This is like the adage “[f]ake it till you make it” (164).

Gilbert once had a relationship with a writer who quit because what he wrote differed from what was in his head. When she continued to work without success, he told her: “I would rather be a beautiful failure than a deficient success” (165). This, to Gilbert, is too much perfectionism. People need to discard perfection, which is unrealistic and keeps them from finishing their work or starting it in the first place. Some people think perfectionism is virtuous, but Gilbert sees it as a type of fear about self-worth. Women deal with perfectionism more, she says, which hinders them and keeps them from participating in the arts. They lack the overconfidence that men have, which allows men to not care about their qualifications. Gilbert thinks that more women should be like this.

Even Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius struggled with perfectionism. He wrote a set of Meditations (1558 or 1559) on creativity, which discussed perfectionism. Gilbert notes that people just need to keep doing the creative work. It removes them from their societal roles and the weight of their existence. She also notes that while some people think that creativity makes one “crazy,” she thinks that not being creative causes this.

Perfectionism relates to worrying about others’ opinions. When she was younger, Gilbert once met an older woman who told her that people worry too much when they’re young about what others think, but then as they age, realize that no one is thinking about them because they are thinking only about themselves. This knowledge allows creatives the freedom to create with abandon. They can then be imperfect, and no one will care. She explains that she only finished her first novel because she didn’t worry that it was imperfect. She almost stopped along the way, but then remembered that her mother always told her: “Done is better than good” (176). She notes that most people don’t complete their projects, so finishing one is surpassing them.

Similarly, she describes how her novel The Signature of All Things has imperfections and an underdeveloped character. She let this go when she was writing because it would have required too much rewriting, and she felt the book was good enough. It was like a crooked house that required tearing down the entire house to fix it. She notes that when she published the novel with its imperfections, it got mixed reviews, and only some critics said anything about the character. After this, people moved on, and the experience improved her writing.

She knew when she first started as a writer that she might not become successful, even with talent, desire, luck, and dedication. Creativity is not like other professions, in which talent and hard work create a path towards success. Creative people should rethink their definition of success. Gilbert realized that success involves talent, luck, and discipline; she could not control her talent or luck, only her discipline. This is the best path towards success, which is still not guaranteed. If a creative endeavor is something a person loves, then they are getting something out of it, even if they don’t achieve success. This is why Gilbert tells people not to make creative endeavors a career; there are always downsides, even with success, such as not liking one’s colleagues, schedule, fans, or critics. She suggests treating creativity as a vocation instead.

Gilbert describes an anecdote about writing the short story “Elk Talk” when she worked as a cook on a Wyoming ranch in her twenties. The story was inspired by learning how cowboys use elk calls. While drunk, she and a friend attempted to attract elk with these calls, and a large elk came towards them, sobering them up and making them feel humble. In the story, she wrote about the confluence between humans and nature. When she sent it to a magazine, she received a rejection letter. It included a personal note from the editor-in-chief, who “encouraged” Gilbert and gave her feedback. She kept sending the story out, but it was still rejected. She got another story published. A literary agent then sent out “Elk Talk” to the same magazine that had rejected her, and it was published. The editor had forgotten the earlier rejection.

She offers a few interpretations of that situation: Either the magazine wanted it because it was submitted by a well-known literary agent and not an unknown writer, or it was an example of “Big Magic.” She thought maybe the editor was having a bad day or was in a bad mood when she rejected it. The second time she read the story, it somehow worked—“it echoed in her consciousness and sang out to her. But that echo was only in her mind because I had planted it there, several years earlier, by sending her my story in the first place. And also because I had stayed in the game, even after the initial rejection” (194). This is Big Magic. Gilbert also learned that people like editors are ordinary people who act differently every day. Creatives just need to reach them at the perfect time, so they should keep trying.

Once, when writer American Richard Ford presented a book talk, an audience member said that he wanted advice because had the same qualifications as Ford but lacked the same success. However, he did not want to hear that he should just keep going. Ford told him to quit because writing was not making him happy. If after leaving writing alone for a while the man could not find anything else better, he should take it up again and persist.