An Audiobook: 2019 Reading Challenge

I’d just like to start off by saying I am not an audiobook “reader.” I know many people who love audiobooks, especially my father, who often travels for work and listens to audiobooks or podcasts along the way. I recently jumped on the podcast train, and I’m loving it. So, when my dad told me I had to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and that he had an audiobook version that Gilbert herself narrates, I decided to go for it. Even if I didn’t love it, the experience would fulfill my audiobook category for the 2019 Reading Challenge.

I loved it. I would take my dog for a walk all the while having Gilbert in my ear telling me stories. It felt like being a little kid again, having my parents read me a story before bedtime. But it was even better than that because Gilbert’s voice is addicting. The way she tells her stories radiates her passion for her craft, and I felt honored to have been invited into her world.

Elizabeth M. Gilbert is an author, essayist, short story writer, biographer, novelist, and memoirist, best known for her 2006 best selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. This book, Big Magic, is also a memoir of sorts, but instead of a travel story, Gilbert takes us along her creative journey.

The first section of her book focuses on the courage that comes with creativity. She poses a question once asked by one of her writing heros, Jack Gilbert (no relation). The central question on which creative living hinges: “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”

The courage to search within yourself for the treasures buried in the core of your being is what separates a mundane life from an enchanted one, and the result of finding those treasures is what Gilbert calls “big magic.”

She believes, as do I, that we as human beings are innately creative beings and we should pursue our creativity. Now, to address what some people may argue; pursuing one’s creativity doesn’t mean becoming a Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Grammy, or Tony winner. Creative living is an amplified life, and all one has to do to live creatively is to quietly make things and share them with others.

Creative living is where big magic resides, and often, the only thing stopping us from accessing this kind of life is fear. Fear is a good thing when protecting you from actual dangers, but you do not need your fear in the realm of creative expression. Sadly, it still shows up because creativity asks you to pursue uncertain outcomes and fear HATES uncertain outcome.

Gilbert personifies both fear and creativity and breaks down their interaction with us and one another. Fear and creativity are like conjoined twins, and we must be careful when trying to kill off fear, because sometimes we accidentally kill off our creativity as well.

She compares embarking on a creative project to a road trip and welcomes both fear and creativity along for the ride. She doesn’t try to kick fear out of the trip, but acknowledges that fear has a voice and a place in her life and may have suggestions along the drive. She welcomes those thoughts, but while she and creativity are hard at work, fear cannot make any decisions along the way. She sums up this metaphor by explaining that traveling with fear is worth it. We can make and do amazingly creative things. We only have one life and if we succumb to our fear, we will end up living a very boring life.

Enchantment is the second section of Gilbert’s book. She believes that inspiration is fluid, an external force that visits us to use us as a vessel to produce a work of art. She tells a story about how a project she was working on ended up being written by a different author. After abandoning the project for a few years and coming back to it at a later date, she realized the inspiration she once had left. This idea then visited another author, Ann Patchett, who did in fact complete the book. The two authors exchanged the idea at a conference where they first met, or so Gilbert believes. Know when I say “exchanged the idea,” I don’t mean Gilbert told Patchett about the idea and Ann went and wrote it, but that the idea left Liz and popped into Ann’s head around the time they met.

Gilbert believes that creativity is an external force. She calls it her “genius,” derived from the Greek mythological idea of muses. She claims that we, as humans, have taken on creativity and inspiration as something that we manifest ourselves rather than as a genius that visits us. Gilbert mentions many authors who became “one hit wonders;” Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others, simply because they took on the weight of their creativity and grew terrified of never being able to live up to the standard they set for themself.

In response, Gilbert shouts, “just keep writing!” If we were to wait for inspiration to strike, we would be waiting for a very long time and accomplish little. Her biggest piece of advice is to write even when uninspired because your genius may be waiting to see if you are taking things seriously before joining you on the journey. We live in a magical world with explanations that may never come, but to collaborate with creativity and jointly uncover the gems hidden inside of us may just be the best way to live.

Gilbert’s book is inspiring for everyone because, like we established earlier, everyone is innately creative, but Permission is my favorite section of her book. In this section Gilbert talks about how to live a creative life without quitting our day job, spending insane amounts of money, and putting the stress of financial stability on creativity. Gilbert suggests for us to fold our dreams into our everyday life.

I love that. We are able to incorporate creativity in our daily lives, and we don’t need to get a MFA or Doctorate in (insert creative field here) to be “successful.” There is no amount of schooling needed to become creatively legitimate. This was the most jarring and encouraging statement from Gilbert. I think the biggest misconception about creative fields is that you must diligently study the art in order to be qualified.

The most successful authors do not have a doctorate in creative writing; in fact, some don’t have any higher education at all. So why do we think that in order to make something of ourselves, we have to go to school and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it?

Well, the truth is, we don't. According to Gilbert, all someone needs to live a creative life is courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, and trust.

As someone who considers myself creative and has a desire to use my creativity in whatever way that looks, this book was extremely comforting. Gilbert addresses all of my concerns and fears in regards to being creative, extinguishes them, gives me support and suggestions to continue to pursue my creativity, and most importantly justifies my desires to be creative.

So, I guess you can say, I’ve been turned into an audiobook “reader,” and am excited to download my next one. Maybe I’ll try Gilbert’s other book, the one that put her on top. If any of you consider yourselves creative--which all of you should--take a look at Big Magic and maybe you’ll find something inspiring in Gilbert’s words. And if you’ve never read an audiobook, take a jab at something new. You may just be pleasantly surprised.

~M