How To ‘Seduce’ Your Creativity

7 Lessons Learned From Big Magic By Elizabeth Gilbert

“Not expressing creativity turns people crazy.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Creativity is often seen as a buzzword, the product of collective internet parlance - often so it’s sometimes seen as something to mock, to be ashamed of. Curiosity is mocked too often - just look at the reaction to people who enjoy cultural activities by themselves, to learn and to take time for themselves.

Lately I’ve been enjoying being sat at cafes, alone with my thoughts, amid the Christmas hubris. The lights, the twinkly sparkle… it’s all a time that feels a little bit more hopeful, a time for renewal.

Big Magic is the book that is seemingly on the shelves of every influencer, TikToker, millennial podcast host. The latest instalment to her literary back catalogue, the author of Eat Pray Love takes on the subject of creativity - how to create, and how to live a life creatively without the associated fear behind it, such as if you like to write. It’s not an instructional manual on how to write the next big bestseller - it’s marketed more as a self help book.

With the palette of pastels across the front cover, it was impossible not to pick up. Writing is still significantly difficult for me to do - and I would not class it as something I derive a lot of enjoyment from any more. Long Covid feels like my brain was split into two; multiple media outlet closures, as well as a hard time at work, means ‘creating’ has come to a grinding haunt. It felt a bit like the book was calling to me from the book shelf - and this is what I learned.

Early on in the book, Gilbert writes: “All I know for certain is that this is how I want to spend my life - collaborating to the best of my ability with forces of inspiration that I can neither see nor prove, nor command, nor understand. It’s a strange line of work, admittedly. I cannot think of a better way to pass my days.”