I recently read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and to be honest, it took me far longer than I like to admit to finish, I found I kept putting it down and then forgetting about it, until the next time I picked it up, however, as I read it, I found there were a lot of things which just clicked. This perspective on creativity just made a lot of sense to me.

In short, Big Magic explores the idea of living creatively and inspiration. If you're a creative person (especially a writer) I'd recommend having a read, if nothing else, it's a really interesting viewpoint.

In today post, I thought I'd tell you the things which really made me think "yeah that really makes sense, why have a never thought of it like that before" There were a lot of light bulb moments as I read, which I felt were worth sharing.


1) The whole idea of personifying inspiration - which is basically what Big Magic is. Inspiration finds us, and if we're not kind to it, it will leave us again. I find inspiration very much comes to me, and it decides what I'm doing. This just makes a lot of sense to me.

2) Don't expect your creativity to pay you. It's serving you already, you needn't demand money from it. “But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.”  Expecting payment will scare your creativity away, you need a purpose beyond money to create.


3) You have to write you own permission slip - no one is going to tell you it's okay to do the creative thing you want to do, people have a habit of waiting until they feel as though they have permission to do something when we are the people capable of giving ourselves permission.

4) Curiosity is important. You should follow all curiosity, as it's got the potential to lead you to a great place.

5) Do something else creative. If your inspiration in your usual art is lacking, do something else creative - you'll soon get past that block.

6) It's not you baby, be less precious...“Done is better than good.” You will never finish something if you're obsessed with perfecting it. Also, other people will not love your art as much as you. Some people will dislike it and some people won't be so nice about it. As soon as you personify it as your baby, that all becomes a lot more hurtful.

7) It's important to show up... "Even if you feel like an idiot, you made it there.  But you must stubbornly walk into that room, regardless, and you must hold your head high. You made it; you get to put it out there. Never apologise for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited, and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more than that. They might throw you out - but then again, they might not."  The quote says it all, right?

8) What if you knew you were going to fail? You should love your art enough that success and failure become irrelevant, Failure is supposed to test us, it's about how we deal with the failure.
 “failure has a function. It asks you whether you really want to go on making things.”  
"What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?” 

9)  There are more important things. "You're not required to save the world with your creativity" Enjoy being creative, you might become successful from it, you might not. If you're doing what you love, you'll be happy because you're doing what you love, as long as you remember there are more important things.

10) Don't play the tortured artist. "Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy." Somewhere along the lines, we glorified this whole tortured artist idea, there is no shame in enjoying your art. You can be creative for the love of it and enjoy it.


As you might be able to tell, I took a lot away from this book. I'd recommend giving it a read, especially if you want some clarification on what I'm trying to say in any of the points above.