Big Love

The idea behind the book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is about helping people who want to create.

Want to write? Then write. Want to sing? Sing.

In the book Big Magic, I liked hearing about the concept of ideas, where they come from, and how they can move on. In a very compelling illustration of this, Gilbert had a story idea with some specific concepts that included an affair, a rainforest, and the building of a road. She began writing the book, then abandoned the project. Latter, she meets up with a friend and fellow author, who has just completed a book. That just so happens to be about an affair, a rainforest, and the building of a highway. The idea had left Gilbert and jumped to the other author. It sought someone else out. Pretty cool to think about.

There is the Parkinson Law that says “work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.” Gilbert described this with her example of being a teacher, stating that it didn’t matter if she taught one class or many more, the work expanded like a sponge. Teaching soaked up all her free time with which she was hoping to use to write. So she stopped teaching.

Gilbert narrates this novel, and several others, on Audible, Amazon’s audio book app. I like hearing the author deliver her work with her emphasis and intonations as she meant them to be. I also listened to her narrate Eat. Pray. Love and Committed: A Love Story. She has a good sense of humor.

I once had a professor who taught me how to get over writer’s block, the trick was to do it by writing. She put it this way “Writing begets writing.” When I had trouble starting with writing, I would just write that out in stream of consciousness until I had what I wanted to say in my mind. I’ve found it works.

Magic is something that helps make life fun and mysterious. Believing that magic is real allows it to be. Is creativity magic? Is love magic? Is friendship magic? Is finding one’s purpose magic?Is creating another being magic?