Beautiful Big Magic  – Revisited

“Creative living is a path for the brave…we all know that when the courage dies, creativity dies with it. We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.”

– Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic; Creative Living Beyond Fear

Wow! What an image, eh?

I first read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic; Creative Living Beyond Fear when it came out in 2015. I absolutely loved it! It really resonated with me at the time…and every time I’ve picked up since then and re-read a highlighted section, I am always reminded of something I very much needed to be reminded of in that moment 🙂

Mind you, Gilbert is pretty much preaching to the converted when it comes to me and creativity. I really do strive to infuse inspiration & creativity into every component of my life – work, writing, e-mail management, household chores, de-cluttering, finances, relationships, thank you cards, travel, health, gardening, exercise and so on.

In fact, it is when I forget that each day is a gift to be treated as a fresh canvas on which to create a mini masterpiece of a larger life well lived, that the sometimes challenging creative tasks I usually enjoy – such as working through a difficult rewrite of a screenplay – become dreaded chores of drudgery.

Now, I know that not all days can be gold star days. In fact, sometimes an entire year or two can be pretty much a write-off. But having experienced a year or two (or three or four) like that myself, I do know that taking a creative approach to whatever life has thrown us can be both healing and transformational. You just never know what diamond can be created from all that emotional and psychological friction.

When I was trying to write the first draft of my book, A Widow’s Awakening, back in 2003, my days in Calgary were ridiculously chaotic. My phone rang constantly, people would drop by unexpectedly and I had an awful lot of demands placed on my time.

Although three years had passed since John’s death, I was still very much grieving and trying to write a book about the experience and working with the police officers who started his memorial fund (to raise public awareness about the workplace safety issue that led to his death) and trying to keep a few dozen people assured that I was okay.

Well, I wasn’t okay. And I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t going to be okay again until I could find some peace and quiet to write what I needed to write – and grieve – without constantly being interrupted.

Thankfully, friends came to the rescue and found for me a remote farmhouse in central Alberta where I could stay for free and write. They arranged it so that I could go there for 3 or 4 days at a time. No internet, no phone, no other people.

By that point, I had a fairly good grasp of the basic outline of the story. Thankfully, I had jotted down very specific notes regarding the details of the events – and my emotional, mental, physical spiritual response to those events – pertaining to John’s fall, the day I spent with him in the ICU as he succumbed to his brain injuries, as well as the brutally difficult days, weeks & months that followed.

But detailed notes are one thing. Writing a cohesive and engaging story from those notes is quite another.

As such, the manuscript was a long, rambling, muddled, mixed-up stew of heartbreaking emotion and wishful thinking for the future. Fortunately, I was working with an excellent editor who, line by line, taught me how to show the story versus tell it.

And so it came to pass that it was in that little farmhouse in central Alberta that I personally experienced the creative connection that Elizabeth Gilbert calls “Big Magic.”

Here is how Gilbert explains this connection with creativity:

“The effort is worth it, because when at last you do connect, it is an otherworldly delight of the highest order…you make the connection. Out of nowhere it all comes together. You must keep calling out in those dark woods for your own Big Magic…because when it all comes together, it’s amazing. The only thing you can do is bow down in gratitude, as if you have been granted an audience with the divine. Because you have.”

Big Magic came to visit me in those dark woods. Although writing over and over again about the darkest period of my life was extremely difficult, I did reach a point – eventually – where the process became, dare I say, magical. The best way I can describe what that magic felt like is perhaps how a figure skater must feel when landing a difficult jump…and then another and then another.

Seeing a book come together is a truly incredible experience – even when the subject matter itself is personally heart-wrenching. In the early days of writing, I never thought the process could ever become ‘truly incredible’ or ‘magical.’ In fact, I hated every second of it.

But writing in peaceful solitude at that blissfully quiet farmhouse with no distractions allowed me to finally get the manuscript to the point where I would write a sentence, or make a plot connection, and it would feel like I had just landed a triple axle…and then a sow cow…and then a back flip! I could almost hear the crowd cheering.

But, of course, for me – writing alone in an isolated farmhouse – there was no crowd of people. Just an audience with the divine 🙂

I also had my two furry best friends with me. And nature, of course.

I would write for a few hours in the morning and then go for long walks in the woods, alongside the river, with my two beautiful German Shepherds, Sable and Soda. Sometimes when we were out walking, I would just cry and cry, as the deep, deep hurt finally made its way to the surface – without being interrupted by a ringing phone. Then I would return to the farmhouse to write some more.

It was a special time of healing and creating.

Now, it still took me another five years of rewrites to get the manuscript where it needed to be….and where I needed to be, for the public promotion of the book and the many demands that brought. Although I technically started writing A Widow’s Awakening two weeks after John’s death in September 2000, the book wasn’t published until 2008.

Things take the time they need to take. I have learned that over and over again.

It has now been nearly 25 years since John died (!) and guess what? I am back working on A Widow’s Awakening again! I am rewriting the manuscript for the publication of a special anniversary edition that will be released in honour of the 25th anniversary of his death on September 29th, 2025. My publisher is FiveArrowsMedia and it is an absolute joy working with them! 

This time around, however, instead of working and crying my eyes out at a farmhouse in central Alberta, I am happily hunkered down at a cozy beach cottage on the Oregon coast. And I am pleased to report that Big Magic is very much alive and well.

The creativity on this rewrite is unbelievable. It’s the same story, of course…but it’s shaping up to be stronger, better, more detailed. In fact, it seems now that what was published in 2008 was the skeletal version – the bones – of the story that this book/s would one day grow up to be. Here in Oregon, I am adding meat to those bones.

And after I get this rewrite finished, I will move on to writing the sequel 🙂

“The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.”

– Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Maryanne Pope is the author of “A Widow’s Awakening.” She also writes screenplays, playscripts & blogs. Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Co-Founder of  the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. To receive her blog, “Weekly Words of Wisdom,” please subscribe here. And be sure to visit our PinkGazelleCards Etsy shop.