Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear Kindle Edition

When Elizabeth Gilbert first came out with her runaway success, "Eat, Pray, Love", I - like many others - dismissed it as fluff. It's insane popularity actually turned me off from paying it ANY attention to it, much less buying it. The more I saw it on the walls of people's homes, as covers on their social media pages, and on t-shirts, the more I rolled my eyes.Fast forward to now, I happened upon a quote about fear that struck me so fiercely that I HAD to know where the quote was from. As it turns out, the quote was from Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic" and, as a tortured creative with imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and too many fears to name - this book ended up being a life preserver, speaking to ALL of the aforementioned creative blocks.Gilbert spoke directly to ME in this book! I don't mean that in a delusional way, I mean that in its most practical sense. She wrote this book from the standpoint of someone who KNEW my struggles as a creative. I wasn't - couldn't be - alone, because she spoke my mind on EVERY page. If you're a creative, you can literally flip through this book to ANY page and find yourself there!I must admit - I consumed this book so greedily the first time that I scarcely internalize everything I'd read. You will need (and want) to read this again and again (I'm on my second reading). I started to mark passages that held particular weight for me, but soon stopped, as I discovered that I would have ended up marking the ENTIRE book.For a person like me, this is not just a "book" - this is REFERENCE material.P.S. - Guess what I recently found in the foyer of my building along with some other books that someone was kind enough to give away? Yup, "Eat, Pray, Love"!

With a title like “Big Magic” I guess I was expecting profound life changing advice to totally rock my world, but for me, this one was a huge flop! I’ve seen this book before that came across my Amazon suggestions, but when I saw it being highly recommended in a paint party business group I signed up for, I felt like it was a sign that I had to order it especially after reading the reviews and informational interviews with the artist on YT.So I ordered this book after hearing some of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talks about her book and hearing so many profound ‘ah-ha!!’ moments that convinced me that I HAD to get this book and read more hoping that the full content would be 1000x better than just what I heard. Well, I finally received this today and read it within 2 hrs time front to back and was sadly disappointed!!I’m not sure what it I was that didn’t do it for me with this one, but it didn’t meet anywhere’s close to my expectations despite what I heard from the author and its reviews before I actually read the book. I sort of found it annoying and was waiting for it to get better, but for me, it just never got to that point. I hate starting a book and not finishing it in case my disappointment was due to something I had missed in the parts I never read.I also found it kind of weird there was no intro and the book just starts in with what is supposed to be chapter one. The chapters/parts kind of jump around, but still tie into and bounce off of each other back and forth a little. The author mentions that this book wasn’t written for her audience, but for her (as our work should be done for) which may be why it’s written in the structure it was-who knows. I find it weird that a book not meant for its viewers be published for viewers to read that specifically mentions it wasn’t written for viewers to read in its content.One of the parts that annoyed me was that the chapters started weird and a few of them started with the word “also” making a point to start a new chapter, but still banking off the previous sub-chapter’s point, make me feel like it shouldn’t have been broken up like that.While I don’t mean to sound mean here, because I still commend her bravery to keep on being so determined to get her work selected and trudging on through so many “no” rejections and while I understand her point in explaining why it was so important to include that in her book (to reiterate the importance of being persistent), I can honestly see why her writing style many not have been chosen for so long. If this book is anywhere like her other books, I have a hard time trying to wrap my head around how her other book “Eat, Pray, Love” got so famous.One of the other poor reviews this book got, mentions that maybe it’s not geared towards those who are already creative which might have been why I didn’t find it so appealing, but then the book mentions that we are ALL creative beings so that shouldn’t matter much to make or break this book for me.This book did leave me with a few ‘yeah, that DOES make a good point, one I really never thought of like that!’ thoughts just like with the videos I saw with her speaking, but that’s about it. I feel like I got far more out of the videos about her talking about the book than I did the book. From the reviews, I honestly felt like this would be highlighting the crap out of it with profound points left and right as much as the reviews hyped up this book to by, which is why I invested in the hardcover copy, but not once did this leave me even thinking to grab my highlighter or dog-ear the pages. In many parts I just hung around waiting to get over with the boring parts to get to the really good stuff that didn’t really come.After reading the cover jacket info on the book, I honestly didn’t feel like this book lived up to the expectation of what it promised. I also feel like this maybe should have been a sequel to her other book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ (which I have not read and know nothing of what it’s really about) with as many times as she mentioned it in this book. I’m not sure if that book is better or worse than this one, but I honestly feel as though if a book IS meant to be a sequel to another book you’ve written, then you probably shouldn’t base your other books around them if you want them to speak for themselves. I feel like just because you have ‘made it’ with one book, doesn’t mean you should piggy-back your other books off of them especially if they don’t have anything to do with each other.I feel like my biggest disappointment with this book was *because*I*do* struggle with fear being a creative and hoped this book would offer better ways to over come that. I know the book was supposed to be geared more towards ‘creative people’ with her term “artist” being used a lot, but I find it kind of annoying when the whole book was more so about her writing journey, leaving me feeling like she was speaking more towards writers than actual art-artists or creative people as a whole. I know it can be applied across the board of creatives, but the over reference of her writing examples was a turn off. I would have loved to hear more of those general creative experiences applied to what she was talking about and less about how her writing made it into a learning experience to teach us.Idk how many times I found myself thinking that this book would be better gifted to my son who struggles more with the issues this book was supposed to help with. Much of the advice in it, ha been much of what I have suggested to him over the years. Being a book hoarder and saying I wouldn’t keep this book, says a lot because I have a hard to like giving away or even loaning my books out even if I didn’t like them that much. I would much rather purchase a second copy and keep mine to give someone else, so to say this book IS one I would give away because it would be far more useful in someone else’s hands than sitting on my shel to possibly reread down the line somewhere by me, says a lot on how much I didn’t care for it. I’m not sure how this book got so many good reviews and it honestly left me feeling like I totally missed something here with this one!!

Liz Gilbert strikes again with her easy-to-read, hard-earned wisdom about the creative life and creative process. She generously offers the conundrum the creative life is with its many paradoxes. She goes on to endorse the stance that for its many inherent challenges, continuing to entertain and indulge our creative impulses is always worthwhile. Life is short- create!

This is the perfect book to read if you need encouragement to continue, or to start, doing what you really love to do. The author has excellent advice for other writers, but she doesn't limit her focus to writers alone. There are many ways to be creative. I recently pulled the book off my shelf to re-read, as it's like spending time with a knowledgeable friend. We all need a pep talk, from time to time.

It is meant to for light readers who mainly wants some what-so guidance in life and decision making. A hard core readee of Philosophical books might end up scrutinizing this book. Nevertheless, it is a very light read, very easy to digest, and good to read in a coffee shop while distressing. Positive-vibe book but and not the type of book that make you question facets of the universe.(Btw, reacting to the previous comment)

Great book! Gilbert uses her unique blend of humor, wisdom and common sense to dispel any anxieties one may have about exploring their creative self.

Wonderful. So many things to learn. Life changing.This book teaches in a very fun way how to live a lighter life.

This was a weird book, bought after reading a quote online from the book. Checked the reviews and noted there were no real reviews with depth. Everything was very simple and a few lines... it turns out so is the book. A fast read that read like a never ending introduction that somewhere melded into a never ending conclusion. With that said I did enjoy some parts of it and have no issue with giving my time or money to it. It was just a little too much talking about her self... maybe? Not sure.

こんな私でも何かの才能が眠っているのだろうか？と夢見心地にしてくれる作品でした。これで本気になれる人が、本当にモニになる才能を持っているのだと思います。