Big Magic: Reads like fact, or maybe clever metaphor

While my wife and I worked on projects in our office, Elizabeth Gilbert was in my ear. She was not eating, praying, or loving- she was documenting personal experience as a creative mind. Gilbert was an audio backdrop that was interesting and kept me attentive while my mind drifted into a media project. At some point I stopped listening and hat to start over while at work. It was a different headspace entriely, but still kept me attentive while I was indepth on product management backlog grooming and maintenance.

Interestingly, while I could easily understand the artistic output and correlations of the audiobook, a great deal of this book turned out to be cross discipline. As Gilbert was studiously dictating ideas and concepts that are tied to the creative and artistic processes, I found that the book was easily transportable to the technical realm, which is creative in a different vein.

Key phrases stood out as did most anecdotes- such as a quote from her mother advising that ‘Done is better than good’. In the narrative, this was pertaining to rough drafts- in product management, this is your Minimally Viable Product, launched and ready for improvement.

She talked of field testing Elk mating calls with Elk talk boombox in the woods. She spoke of being first to market with books, then how waiting too long, a concept will abandon you and move to another more available individual.

Whether you read this straight or allow it to traverse the creative line to a far removed creative tangent, it is a phenomenal book. Surprising- hilarious- jaw dropping- how much was fact and how much was metaphor? Who knows, but it was a damn good book.