Book SummaryBig Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Big Magic

Big Magic is author Elizabeth Gilbert’s guide to leading a more fulfilled life by making creativity, in any guise that suits you, a part of your daily existence. The book offers both spiritual wisdom on how to work with the magical forces of creativity, as well as suggestions on how to create effectively and productively. Gilbert draws on her successful career as a writer, best known for her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, and her advice is aimed toward anyone who has a creative bent.

In the book, Gilbert outlines her unique definitions around creativity, including the concept of “Big Magic” (or, as we’ll call it for clarity, Creative Sorcery). She elaborates on how to work effectively with Creative Sorcery before describing how to embark on a creative journey and keep your creative momentum up over the long term.

Defining Creativity, Creative Sorcery, and Ideas

Gilbert defines creativity as the search for and excavation of universe-endowed gifts that are within us, hidden from our view. Our gifts are the talents, interests, and desires that make us us. You can have a gift for anything—stargazing, website design, or mushroom hunting, for instance—not just a traditionally artistic pursuit, like painting, writing, or performing.

Notice that Gilbert does not define creativity as a professional pursuit or even as the main goal or mission of one’s life. It’s simply a commitment to exploring your depths and bringing to light the powers that exist within you.

Other Definitions of Creativity

Gilbert’s conception of creativity for this book is unique, perhaps because seasoned creators develop idiosyncratic definitions of this concept. If Gilbert’s definition doesn’t fully resonate with you, fellow writer Amy Tan has her own definition, which she presented in a popular TED Talk. Tan feels her creativity is the product of her upbringing, the big questions that preoccupy and interest her, and her quest to derive meaning from the world.

Steve Jobs’s definition of creativity was different still: He said that creativity was just a matter of forming novel connections. For Jobs, magic and mysticism figured far less into creativity than for Tan and Gilbert. As a creator, you may wish to come up with a definition of creativity that most resonates in your life.

A Creative Life Gives You Access to Creative Sorcery

According to Gilbert, the central reason to develop your creativity is to come in touch with Creative Sorcery. In Gilbert’s view, Creative Sorcery is a mystical or spiritual force of creativity. This force is bigger than us and cannot be explained scientifically or proven empirically. It is an eternal cosmic entity that creatives must have faith in.

For Gilbert, coming into contact with Creative Sorcery is a transcendent experience. Touching Creative Sorcery lets you be moved by and interact with something greater than yourself. This communion with a higher creative energy constitutes the chief goal of Gilbert’s life.

Other Forms of Spiritual Enlightenment

Gilbert’s vision of touching Creative Sorcery has a lot in common with the search for spiritual enlightenment which humans all around the world and in all faith traditions seek out, either to stimulate creativity or to experience more general spiritual relief. Sufi Muslims, for example, perform a whirling dance to escape the confines of their egos, commune with God, and become spiritually perfect.

Outside of faith, some use mind-altering drugs to come into contact with something bigger than themselves and even to enhance their creativity. Research has shown that psychoactive substances don’t activate creativity, but do make drug-takers more sensitive and open to stimuli, which can indirectly lead to greater creativity.

Creative Sorcery Communicates Through Ideas

Gilbert states that Creative Sorcery is trying at all times to contact humans to help them bring their creativity into the world. One way Creative Sorcery communicates with humans is through ideas. Gilbert envisions ideas as living entities, capable of self-sustained activity. Ideas move around space, seeking humans who will take them on and give them life.

According to Gilbert, humans do not give rise to ideas: Ideas exist independently of us. This means that ideas are free to come and go as they please. You may find yourself visited by an idea and then deserted by it.

The Neurological Explanation for Ideas

Gilbert’s description of what ideas are and how they operate comes from a magical perspective. Science, meanwhile, has a different explanation.

According to researchers at the University of Haifa, creative ideas come into existence when two separate and possibly opposing brain networks are activated. These networks are the “associative” region and the “conservative” region. The associative region seems to be linked to originality, while the conservative region may be associated with adhering to social norms and rules. Thus, it seems that when both originality and an awareness of social regulations come together, the best ideas are produced.

This neurological explanation for ideation is at odds with Gilbert’s belief that humans don’t give rise to ideas and that they “visit” us; instead, it seems they’re formed, and stay, within us.

Embarking on Your Creative Journey

Now that you understand what Gilbert’s visions of creativity, Creative Sorcery, and ideas are, you can start creating, she says. But before you jump into a...

Big Magic Summary Shortform Introduction

Big Magic is a guide to leading a more fulfilled life by making creativity, in any guise that suits you, a part of your daily existence. Elizabeth Gilbert provides advice and thoughts on the creative process, which she sees as a way to access an unseen, transcendent force of creative energy. Gilbert also explores how to effectively incorporate creativity into your life in a way that is enjoyable and sustainable. She offers tools to make you a more resilient and committed creator, able to weather the storms of a creative life with grace and ease.

This book is not about how to attain a creative career or achieve success as a creative. It is, rather, a spiritual treatment of how creativity can enhance your life by making you more attuned and receptive to beauty and joy.

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilbert is a bestselling author. Her first published work was a short story collection, Pilgrims (1997), which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. She followed this with a novel, Stern Men (2000); and a...

Big Magic Summary Chapter 1: Definitions of Creativity, Creative Sorcery, Ideas, and Genius

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert explores what it means to live a creative life and the benefits of a creative existence. In this guide, we’ll discuss Gilbert’s ideas on:

• Defining creativity and associated terms
• Building a good relationship with the mystical forces of creativity
• Beginning a creative journey
• Handling your first creative idea
• Coping with creative challenges
• Maintaining your creative momentum over the long term
• Keeping up your faith in the forces of creativity over the long term

In this chapter, we’ll introduce Gilbert’s key terminology and unique definitions surrounding creativity, which we’ll use throughout the guide. We’ll first describe Gilbert’s vision of creativity, then introduce the concept of Creative Sorcery, the cosmic force that can visit you when you are creating. We’ll end by discussing two key ways Creative Sorcery might come to you: via ideas and through your genius.

What Is Creativity?

Gilbert defines a creative life as the search for and excavation of universe-endowed gifts that are within us, hidden from our view. Our gifts are the talents, interests, and desires that make us us. You can have a gift for...

Shortform Exercise: Create Your Definition of Creativity

Define creativity for yourself.

Ignoring Gilbert’s definition of creative work for the moment, how would you define creativity? What in your life do you consider to be a creative pursuit? Explain your answer.

Big Magic Summary Chapter 2: Building a Good Relationship With Creative Sorcery

In the last chapter, we defined important terms Gilbert uses—creativity, Creative Sorcery, ideas, and genius—and described how humans can interact with ideas and their geniuses. In this chapter, we’ll dig into your relationship with Creative Sorcery. As we’ll discover, how you view and choose to work with Creative Sorcery is critical. You can engage with it in a way that makes your creative process fraught and difficult, or you can engage with it in a way that makes your creative process joyful and smooth.

Specifically, we’ll discuss four keys to a good relationship with your creativity and Creative Sorcery:

• Key 1: Understand That You Were Born With a Relationship to Creative Sorcery
• Key 2: View Your Relationship With Creative Sorcery as Mutually Beneficial
• Key 3: Keep Your Relationship With Creative Sorcery Loose and Light
• Key 4: Don’t View Suffering as Integral to Your Relationship With Creative Sorcery

Let’s explore each key in detail.

Key 1: Understand That You Were Born With a Relationship to Creative Sorcery

Gilbert stresses first that Creative Sorcery naturally seeks out relationships with all humans. You don’t need to be selected by the universe...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your Relationship to Faith

Think about and discuss the role of faith—creative and non-creative—in your life.

We talk in this chapter about joyous faith in Creative Sorcery. Describe other parts of your life in which you have unconditional faith and why this faith exists. (This doesn’t have to be religious faith and can be quite narrow. It can just be, for instance, faith that difficulties at work will get sorted eventually, or faith that your kids will get their grades up in school without you needing to panic about it or intervene.)

Big Magic Summary Chapter 3: Embarking on Your Creative Journey

In the last chapter, we discussed the keys to building a healthy and lasting relationship with Creative Sorcery, which will make your creative process as enjoyable and fulfilling as possible. In this chapter, we’ll move on to discussing the commencement of your creative journey. We’ll cover the mental preparation and mindset adjustments that will set you off on the right foot creatively.

Accept Your Fear

One of the first things you must do as you begin your creative journey, says Gilbert, is find a way to manage your fear. She believes fear is omnipresent when we are trying to be creative. This is because fear’s main purpose is to protect us in situations of uncertainty, and, unfortunately, the creative process is full of uncertainty.

(Shortform note: There is a specific condition called “fear of the unknown,” or FOTU, which seems to be the type of fear Gilbert talks about here. The anxiety generated by fear of the unknown may be the scientific explanation for why we pull away from creative projects: When we’re burdened by worry about how a project might turn out,...

Shortform Exercise: Understand and Acknowledge Your Creative Fears

Learn to create effectively with your fears in hand.

Describe some fears or anxieties you have around creating. (Are you, for instance, afraid of not executing an idea well?) Be as detailed as possible.

Big Magic Summary Chapter 4: Responding to Ideas

In the last chapter, we discussed how to prepare yourself mentally for your creative journey. In this chapter, we’ll talk about the next step of the journey: responding to an idea in a way that is creatively fruitful.

When an idea comes to you, Gilbert says, there are a number of responses you can give. The most common is to pass on the idea. As previously noted, the idea will then move on to find another host who can take it on. The other response is to say yes, says Gilbert. When you say yes to an idea, you enter into a “contract,” or agreement, with it. You choose to work together and see the idea through to the end, whatever that end looks like.

(Shortform note: Gilbert believes that when you respond in the affirmative to an idea, you must make an agreement with it so that you complete it to the best of your ability. But creators often find that despite their best efforts, an idea just doesn’t work, and they must decide whether to keep at it or drop it. Abandoning an idea doesn’t mean tossing it in the waste bin, though. It can live on in another iteration or even within a different...

Big Magic Summary Chapter 5: Encountering and Dealing With Creative Challenges

In the last chapter, we discussed how to best respond to an idea. In this chapter, we’ll discuss how to handle the inevitable creative challenges you’ll encounter on your creative journey. We’ll first discuss accepting the inevitable difficulty in your creative work. We’ll then cover some common mental pitfalls creators set up for themselves and how you can, as best as possible, guard yourself against them.

Make Peace With Irritations

First, Gilbert claims that no matter what creative pursuit you take on, there will always be attending annoyances. A circus performer, for instance, must contend with physical danger. A bird watcher must deal with the reasonable chance of not seeing any birds. A world traveler must cope with jet lag.

Instead of railing against or trying to avoid pain points, view them as equally integral to your job as the high points, says Gilbert. Developing an ability to cope with irritants and unpleasantness is as much a part of your job as a creator as actually creating.

Meditation Can Help Cope With Difficulties

Gilbert suggests viewing irritation as part of your job as a creator, but she doesn’t offer concrete suggestions on how...

Shortform Exercise: Overcome Creative Obstacles

Identify and plan how to overcome your main external and internal creative obstacles.

Describe your creative work habits. What are your strengths, and, more importantly, your weaknesses as a creator? (For instance, you may habitually procrastinate, but have excellent focus when you do get to work.)

Shortform Exercise: Overcome Perfectionism

Learn to counter perfectionism and perfectionistic thoughts.

Describe a time in the past two weeks when you felt you were being perfectionistic or demanding more of yourself than realistically possible. (For example, did you agonize over a work presentation, trying to get it just right?)

Big Magic Summary Chapter 6: Maintaining Your Creative Momentum

In the last chapter, we discussed how to deal with the challenges you’ll run into during the creative process. In this chapter, we’ll switch to a long-term perspective on creativity. Gilbert believes creativity is not a one-off project or pursuit only for the young. It is, rather, a lifestyle and mode of being you should maintain throughout your lifetime. Here, we’ll discuss Gilbert’s suggestions on how to upkeep your creativity over your life.

We’ll first cover your relationship to your genius and how to work with or without it over the long term. We’ll then move on to more practical suggestions on maintaining your creative practice. We’ll end the chapter with advice on how to find inspiration when it doesn’t visit you for an extended period.

View Your Genius as a Separate Entity

In Chapter 1, we defined your genius as an entity that exists outside of you which occasionally graces you with visits. Gilbert says this perspective helps you to hang on to your creative freedom over the long term by reducing personal responsibility for brilliance.

If, says Gilbert, you see yourself as singularly responsible for your work, when you produce something bad, you’ll feel the...

Shortform Exercise: Find New Creative Time Slots

Create a sustainable creative schedule by finding new times to create.

Describe a time in the past month when you felt stressed or “pinched” around your creative work because you didn’t have enough time for it. Be specific about why you felt you didn’t have enough time—what was your obstacle?

Big Magic Summary Chapter 7: Maintaining Faith in the Creative Process

In the last chapter, we discussed ways to stay creative in the long term and ideally for the rest of your life. In this final chapter, we’ll keep that long-term lens but focus on maintaining your faith in Creative Sorcery and your creative process. We’ll discuss several final big-picture approaches you should take to your creativity to ensure that your process remains positive, enjoyable, and fulfilling.

Don’t Search Too Hard for Answers

To stay sane and easy-going about your creativity in the long run, Gilbert says to refrain from trying to analyze and understand the vagaries of your creative process. Because so much of creativity—the receiving of ideas, the intervention of your genius—is Creative Sorcery, it is beyond the realm of logic. You can’t bring reason to it. Instead, says Gilbert, learn to be okay with unknowns and mystery. Maintain joyous faith in Creative Sorcery, and know that it has your best interests at heart and wants to help you.

(Shortform note: The way that Gilbert advises against investigating into Creative Sorcery is somewhat reflected in the content and approach to creativity of Big Magic itself. Critics have described the book as...

Shortform Exercise: Develop a Resilient Mentality

Develop the mental strength to ensure your creative process remains positive.

Describe a time when you cared too much about a creative project or took a project so seriously that it became a negative experience for you.