Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Gilbert advocates for seemingly contradictory things. These include courage and fear, hard work and inspiration, and creating for oneself and sharing work with the world. She suggests that these qualities can exist alongside one another, and advocates that creatives integrate them so that they can more freely create.

Gilbert feels that inspiration exists apart from humans, which seems to contradict her idea that hard work is necessary in creativity. However, these two elements can coexist. For example, her own writing process entails working hard until inspiration hits. Sometimes she feels an unexplained “force” pushing her, which she views as inspiration. Hard work and inspiration seem to contradict each other, but they feed off of one another and propel her writing.

Gilbert cautions against fear but also suggests that people accept it, as it will always be there. Fear always appears when people do something interesting with an unknown result. She tells her fear that it can exist but that she will be ignoring it. Courage is not the absence of fear, but embracing creativity and acting in spite of it. Courage allows people to create without feeling burdened or ashamed of their fear, while acknowledging that it will always appear when being creative.