Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (and a Book Giveaway!)

I’m an Elizabeth Gilbert fan. Anyone who goes to Italy to eat all the pasta she can while she learns Italian and meets men sounds pretty fun to me.

But the first third of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, didn’t speak to me like those scenes of the author gobbling pasta did. A mega-successful author’s tales of struggle often fall flat with this oft-rejected author. Happily, as I read on, the book’s charms took hold. Here are some of the lines that swooped me up:

As the saying goes, “Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.”

How many times do we defend our limitations? Send those excuses sailing far, far away.

The most evil thing about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as virtue.

Yes! 

While it may seem lonely and horrific at first to imagine that you aren’t anyone else’s first order of business, there is also a great release to be found in this idea. You are free, because everyone is too busy fussing over themselves to worry all that much about you.

I sometimes go to a party where I don’t know many people and think everyone is watching me flounder as I decide where to sit or whom to talk to. Nope. Nobody is watching and nobody is worried what I decide to do. And so it is for most of life, luckily.

Be careful of your dignity, is what I’m saying. It is not always your friend.

Here’s to letting our dignity slide in 2016. See ya, Dig!

I believe that curiosity is the secret. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living.

My mom told me how pleased she was to be in her late eighties and still learning new things. Elizabeth Gilbert finds curiosity to the highest calling of the creative spirit. 

And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. 

Me too. What about you? What are your favorite ways to be creative? Any creativity goals for 2016?

Giveaway: To win a copy of Big Magic, enter a comment by January 20, 2016. Thanks!

Facebook: I’m enjoying Elizabeth Gilbert’s page. Follow it here.

New York Times: Here’s a review of the book, with a much more in-depth analysis than I’ve given you above.

More Quotes!

 

I Named a Bread!

Every girl has dreams.

I had dreams, years ago, of making it big as a writer.

But alas, despite some success with my writing, I’m not exactly well known (well actually known at all) to the editors of the New Yorker.

But I named a bread!

For real and true.

My son-in-law, the brilliant baker, creates new styles of bread.

He recently sent out a call:

“We’re going to make a new whole grain bread next month with semolina flour, millet, and sesame seeds.  It will be topped with a thorough crust of sesame seeds.  I need a good name!”

The email went on:  “FYI, semolina is made from durum, which is a sub-variety of wheat that is typically used in pasta.  It has a nuttier flavor than normal wheat, a lot of protein, and is very sturdy.”

That all sounded complicated to me.

I really don’t get wheat and how it magically turns into bread, but I do know that Mrs. Sun assists grandly by shining down on those amber waves of grain.

Semolina Sunshine!

I submitted the name to the Editor of the Bread.

The next thing I knew, there it was, labeling the delicious loaves themselves:

They say every good blog post needs a takeaway.

And so here’s mine for today.

Nope, I didn’t make a lot of dough with my writing.

But I’m lucky enough to have a son-in-law who makes a lot of dough, delicious dough.

And I’m lucky enough, in mid-life, to have new avenues for creativity such as blogging and bread naming.

I bet you, too, have opportunities you never thought you’d have, in places you would least expect them.

Let the sun shine on us!

The Bakery:  The next time you’re in Charlottesville, Virginia, stop in to the bakery, Great Harvest Bread Company.  Try some samples from the Bread Board:

And meet the Baker, Matt Monson, and his wife: