Famous book: Eat Pray Love
Biggest fear: Never being able to recreate the success of Eat Pray Love
Three quotes:
"It's exceeding likely that my greatest success is behind me"
"Ideas of every kind are constantly galloping towards us, constantly passing through us, constantly trying to get our attention. Let them know you're available."
"Anyhow, the older I get, the less impressed I become with originality. These days, I'm far more moved by authenticity. Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me."
What or who gave them the courage to write/publish:
Summary:
Millions of people would be without some of their favorites books, if not for Elizabeth Gilbert. The New York Times #1 bestselling author has published ten books, two film adaptations (City of Girls being currently in development), and countless awards for magazine writing.
While her success in writing brought her everything she could ever want, her career did not go without overcoming the common problems that authors face.
Her book "Eat Pray Love" is known as her most significant success, selling over 10 million copies, and granting her ultimate validation in her field. While this success did propel her to near superstar status, few know the fear and anxiety that the book caused Gilbert during her career and how it affected her relationship with writing.
Her fear and anxieties were rooted in one thought; the fear of recreating the success of "Eat Pray Love." Soon after finding success, these fears began to consume her. These fears made her question everything about her writing. They made her question her gift.
The more she felt these fears, the more she sought to understand them. Gilbert would begin the process of dissecting her fear. The more she tried to identify this, the more it became clear what it truly was – she was afraid of never recreating the success she had with "Eat Pray Love."
Once she identified this fear, she continued on her journey of fully understanding it. She would find herself asking, "How in the world was I going to write a book again that was ever going to please anybody?"
Elizabeth knew there were impossibly high expectations for her next book, and at times she didn't even know if she wanted to write another book, but her love for writing saved her. In her words, she "needed to find a way for my creativity, so as to survive its own success."
She found that way by going "home." She didn't literally run off to her New Jersey home; rather, she went to where her heart was – in writing. She explained that the book was her home because "home is whatever you love more than yourself."
She found her way back home by connecting with herself. She thought back on times before she was ever published, back when she was still facing rejection as a young author. She explained that there was no real pressure to write back then and especially no pressure to follow up a New York Times bestseller. She was writing because she loved to write. Her writing was her home.
After going back "home," she broke through her fear of trying to recreate the success of her last book. She realized that she had to go back to the way she used to write. She had to put her nose to the grindstone and start writing. Her love for writing outweighed her fear of failure and that ultimately led to her next book, "Committed: A love story."
Now here's the part where her next book becomes an even more significant success. Wrong!
In her words, "it bombed." The book didn't sell millions of copies and get a movie deal, like her last piece. It only got a fraction of the attention that "Eat Pray Love" received. But none of that mattered. She had broken the spell of fear! She was back to writing for the sheer love of writing. She was "home."
Gilbert has published six more books since "Committed" and has been met with great feedback and success with her career. This is because she had her "home." Find your home. Find that thing that you love more than yourself and build your house.
Resources
Gilbert, Elizabeth. "Your Elusive Creative Genius." TED. TED, February 2009. https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius.
———. "Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating." TED, March 2014. https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating.
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