#Meaningful Reading :: Big Magic ::

Happy Thursday everyone! I have finished Big Magic a while ago now, and never got a chance to review it properly here. It is probably due to the fact that I loved 3/4 of the book and the other quarter did not really talk to me. Liz's creativity outlet is obviously writing and the final part of her book was more focused on that type of creativity. 

However I love (3/4 of) this book. Let me begin by the fact that I loved Eat, Pray and Love. I read it, I went to see it at the cinema, it is my go-to-feel-better film on Netflix (alongside the Holiday) if I am having a bad day. The only issue with my obsession with Eat, Pray and Love is that I now think that Liz Gilbert looks like Julie Roberts. So I read Big Magic thinking that Julia Roberts was talking to me - it is fine but a bit weird, especially when I started stalking Liz Gilbert on IG, and realising that Julia Roberts was never featured on Liz' feed - what?! 

Anyway back to Big Magic. The book is really fun as well as being deep. I loved the fact that Liz was not scared of sharing her experience of the success of Eat, Pray, and Love and her experience of her not so successful other books (yes she has written others since, and before, that I have never read). If you were as taken as I was by Eat, Pray and Love, Big Magic is worth a read, just for that. 

I find the book liberating and empowering for my creative process. Liz asks a lot of very meaningful questions about your passion, whether it matters or not; and she also tell you that you should never expect to make money from your art. Well hold on here, I was not expecting that... At first I thought to myself, well it is a bit easy to tell us this when you wrote Eat, Pray and Love - but now I found this quite a liberating statement. 

She splits her book into six parts: Courage - creative living is having the courage to follow your aspirations, longing and talents and recognise (and overcome) fear; Enchantment - ideas are disembodied energy that wants to manifest and you have to make space to welcome ideas; Permission - Liz asks her readers to give themselves permission to start living creatively (but to avoid getting into debt in the process); Persistence - keep going and don’t be disheartened if the first thing created gets no recognition, Trust - living creatively is all about following where curiosity takes you; & Divinity - creativity is scared and that the reader should start creative living immediately.

If you are a fan, you might find that you've already read or encountered many of the core ideas on her Facebook page or in the accompanying podcast. I have never listened to any, but heard that the podcast does cover some of these topics.

Big Magic is inspiring, and incredibly pragmatic. This book will resonate with anyone who wants to live a creative and fulfilled life. On the one hand, it’s deeply mystical and out there (ideas floating around in the universe looking for an owner for instance). I believe in that sort of stuff, but I can see that this might not be for everyone. On the other, it’s incredibly pragmatic, offering down-to-earth advice that applies to anyone engaged in a creative pursuit, whether purely for the joy of it or to make a living as well (avoiding getting into debt in the process). But this is not a “how-to” guide, but a series of essays and meditations on some of the challenges and contradictions involved in creative endeavours - based Liz' experience as a writer.

Has anyone read it? What did you think?