How to Be Creative: Big Ideas from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic

In her new book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert essentially gives readers the opportunity to sit down with the author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things and chat about creativity. This is a conversational, intimate glimpse into Gilbert’s process and philosophy, as personable as a confab over coffee. Here are a few of the big ideas within.
Write like no one is reading
The book’s subtitle is Creative Living Beyond Fear, and one of the remarkable things about it is the way Gilbert unflinchingly allows us into her headspace. There is no pretension here, no leave-me-alone-I’m-famous attitude. Gilbert is frank about her own fears and down-to-earth about her writing career. Discussing the creation of Eat, Pray, Love, she talks about asking her husband’s permission to include him and their relationship in the book. When he asks “What’s at stake?” she replies “Nothing. Trust me—nobody reads my books.”
Find the magic
This book’s purpose is to inspire people who want to be creative but have found it difficult. Instead of a dry book about discipline and process, Gilbert focuses on the more magical side of creativity, and offers advice on giving yourself permission to be creative. One step is realizing that your creativity doesn’t have to change the world, or even be successful in an economic sense, in order to be valuable.

Ideas are everywhere
Gilbert isn’t above name-dropping a bit, which is understandable considering the literary circles she moves in these days, but she tells her stories with a clear-eyed warmth and purpose that elevates them above mere bragging. One story about meeting and forming a friendship with Ann Patchett involves an incredible creative coincidence—it turns out that Gilbert spent years researching and writing her own “Amazon novel” before giving up on it in frustration, only discovering later that her good friend was working on the same basic idea. The anecdote supports Gilbert’s belief that good ideas are floating around out there, just waiting to be seized.

Live the struggle and be selfish
What makes Big Magic essential reading for anyone who wants to live a larger life, filled with more ideas, more projects, and more fulfillment, is Gilbert’s frankness. Gilbert talks about how she paid the bills with a succession of dull jobs, how lucky she was that Eat, Pray, Love turned into a monster smash, and how her own messy personal life has informed her creativity. She makes it clear that being selfish is vital to creativity—she admits that she wrote Big Magic for herself, because she enjoys thinking and writing about creativity. As with Eat, Pray, Love, she wrote this book for her own pleasure; if it helps others, then that’s icing on the cake—but only icing.
Give yourself permission
The best idea in this book is the simplest: give yourself a “permission slip” to be creative. Gilbert points out that humans are inherently creative beings, and it’s your birthright to be as creative as you like. You don’t need someone to pat you on the head and say “Go for it!” You just go for it. And that idea, like this book, is powerful stuff.