[review] Big magic

Elizabeth Gilbert fascinate me with her Eat, Pray, Love memoir. So when I knew that she got another non-fiction book, I decided to give it a try.

Big magic is talking about the meaning of creativity for her. She believes that idea is a free creature which inhabit this world just like human. And it’s turn into creativity by asking human to be their partner and to turn them into a masterpiece. And it’s totally up to the human to engage with the idea or just let it go because the ideas are free creature so it can look for another human partner.

You’ll see Liz using her staple writing style in this book, which is to treat adjectives as an object. It’s interestig to see her explore creativity, fear, bravery, as character who lives together and interact with each other.

There is also a section where she portrait creative living as having an affair. People who has an affair always make time and willing to sacrifice for their mistress no mater how big is the risk. That’s all because they are in love. Therefor if you are in love with your creativity, you need to make time for it, no matter what it cost you.

She also offer a brand new perspective about pursuing creative living. For me personally, one key takeaway that I got from Big Magic is that the most important thing is not to make creative living as money machine in your life. You risk your creativity by forcing it as a money machine. Because when you failed (and the chance of failure is really high in creative living world), you’ll blame your creativity and you risk your life as well. So for a novice, it’s important to just focus on your creative endeavor.