Writing Beyond Fear

Read “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert. A neighborhood friend gave this to me. She’s an amazing friend of my mom’s, and she’s just started working on publishing a memoir of her life. She recommended this book to me and it’s incredibly powerful. Doesn't matter if you’re just now discovering what it means to be a writer or if you’re a long time published author, read this book! Heck, even if you don’t even consider yourself a writer and have never even written anything in your life I’d still recommend this book to you. And here's why: It's written from the author's own perspective, draws on her own issues and insecurities, but they are ones we all have. And through Gilbert's eyes and her brilliant mind, she helps whoever reads this book how to overcome those fears too. Especially in the world of writing.

Being a writer is probably one of the scariest things (at least for me) because once we hit that big "publish" button our work is out there like a YouTube video waiting to go viral either because it's so great or because it's a giant flop. However, like in "Part I: Courage" chapter "SCARY, SCARY, SCARY", Gilbert talks about all these fears and how they're useless to dwell on because otherwise, we are never going to get anywhere.

I can personally attest to this as it's one reason that seven years later I'm still working on the same book. However, if I hadn't read Gilbert's book then my own book would probably still be collecting dust on my shelf rather than allow me to go back and try and get it ready for future publication. Now I'm actively meeting with an editor, working with my current writing professor, and asking the help of my own peers in order to avoid my book's doomed fate to never even see the light of day.

Needless to say we all have fears we have to overcome, so please read this no matter what your circumstance as I'm sure it will help.