Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity

If you are a creative person and pursuing a career in a creative industry and/or field, you should check out Elizabeth Gilbert's lecture on TED Talks.

Elizabeth attended New York University, where she studied political science by day and worked on her short stories by night. After college, she spent several years traveling around the country, working in bars, diners and ranches, collecting experiences to transform into fiction. These explorations eventually formed the basis of her first book - a short story collection calledPILGRIMS, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. During these early years in New York, she also worked as a journalist for such publications as Spin, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. She was a three-time finalist for The National Magazine work, and an article she wrote in GQ about her experiences bartending on the Lower East Side eventually became the basis for the movie COYOTE UGLY.

In 2000, Elizabeth published her first novel, STERN MEN (a story of brutal territory wars between two remote fishing islands off the coast of Maine) which was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2002, Elizabeth published THE LAST AMERICAN MAN - the true story of the modern day woodsman Eustace Conway. This book, her first work of non-fiction, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Elizabeth is best known, however for her 2006 memoir EAT PRAY LOVE, which chronicled her journey alone around the world, looking for solace after a difficult divorce. The book was an international bestseller, translated into over thirty languages, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide, and a movie version in the making, starring Julia Roberts. The book became so popular that, in 2008, Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to EAT PRAY LOVE called COMMITTED -- a memoir which explored her ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage. The book immediately became a number one New York Times bestseller, and was also received with warm critical praise. As Newsweek wrote, COMMITTED "retains plenty of Gilbert's comic ruefulness and wide-eyed wonder", and NPR called the book "a rich brew of newfound insight and wisdom." COMMITTED will be published in paperback in February 2011.

Zolra's Corner: The Good Things About Journaling

I spoke about this before, and since I have been feeling extremely creative for the past couple of days, this week felt like the best week to talk about this again.

One day, I began to remember my terrible childhood. Most things I can't even tell you in one blog post. If I had to tell you guys all at once, I will have to write a book about it instead of one blog post. The one thing that always cleared my head was journaling. There are some people that still call it diaries, but I call it a journal. When I was writing my feelings down, I was also drawing sketches in it. It was like writing my own book with pictures in it.

At the end of every night journaling, I felt strong enough to survive the next day. Because of it, I decided to share to you guys what are the good things about journaling. It's not just about writing a burn book. There's more to that.

Journaling came into our lives for many reasons. One way people journal is to help get rid of their depression. Sometimes, life brings us down in a way that we never felt before. We hold in so much sadness, the one decision we choose is writing. Once you start writing, you can feel your sadness going away as you continue to write one word at a time. Sometimes, you might start crying. Even if you do, keep on writing till you let everything out. Then once you finish writing that entry, I guarantee that you will feel a lot better. Even if the entry is long (probably five pages or more), the good thing about it is that you let everything out.

Another reason why people journal is to help get rid of anger. Holding anger inside is actually worse than holding in sadness. When it comes to holding anger, you don't know when you are going to let it out. You might even aim it to the wrong person. Journaling is considered a great way to relinquish your anger.

In some ways, writing about your daily life can be a part of journaling. Sometimes, you might wanna look back at your life to see how things have changed since then. That's an amazing way to do it. As long as it is used for good reasons only. In the movie Mean Girls, they created this thing called "The Burn Book". You don't want to create something like that.

If journaling is going to be a part of your life, make sure that you are using it for good reasons only. Turn negative into a positive. And remember to keep it to yourself. Unless you have friends that you know so well, you can trust them no matter what, I recommend you keep your journal to yourself.