Make Something While the Flicker’s Still Warm

It starts with a flicker.

Not a thunderclap. Not some grand, cinematic “aha.” Just a weird little whisper that shows up while you're half-scrolling, half-thinking, half-distracted. A nudge. A sentence. A sketch. A bug fix that feels... poetic somehow.

That’s the pulse of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Not a how-to, not a blueprint—more like a permission slip. For builders. For writers. For anyone who feels something wanting out, even if they don’t know what it is yet.

Gilbert doesn’t mythologize creativity. She demystifies it. Says it’s not about brilliance—it’s about showing up. Daily. Clumsily. With fear riding shotgun, but not touching the wheel.

Because that’s the trap: we wait.

Wait for permission. For skill. For confidence. For the muse to show up with an NDA and a roadmap. But Gilbert calls that bluff. Ideas, she says, don’t wait around forever. They’re travelers. Looking for hosts. If you ghost them long enough, they move on.

And that hits.

How many ideas have you buried because the timing wasn’t right? Because you were too busy, too unsure, too focused on what the market wanted? Meanwhile someone else shipped your weird idea—and made it sing. That’s not theft. That’s transfer.

Gilbert’s answer? Say yes sooner.

That doesn’t mean reckless launches. It means treating curiosity like a co-founder. Giving it oxygen. Matt Mullenweg did. He didn’t just chase a CMS—he chased a belief: that publishing should be open. That creativity online should be frictionless. WordPress wasn’t a business idea. It was an idea idea. And he showed up for it—bug by bug, night by night.

Big Magic is full of these reframes. Like the idea that talent isn’t the ticket. Lightness is. Play is. Permission is. The best builders don’t treat fear like a brick wall. They treat it like background noise.

Think about Banksy. The anonymity is part of the art. A refusal to ask anyone for branding advice. Just messages on walls, unfiltered, unapproved. Not waiting for a launch date. Just launching.

Or Sahil Lavingia—Gumroad’s zigzag path wasn’t failure. It was versioning. He paused. Stepped back. Rebuilt. Decoupled his identity from his metrics. And found joy again—not in exits, but in the work itself.

That’s Gilbert’s whole thesis: creativity doesn’t owe you anything.

It might not pay. It might not scale. But it will feed you—if you let it. If you stop trying to wrestle it into something impressive. If you just build the thing because you love the way it feels when it comes alive.

So what does that mean for you?

• Follow the flicker. Even if it makes no sense yet. Especially then.

• Let fear ride, but not drive. Resistance shows up when the work matters.

• Don’t wait to be “ready.” Make something while it’s still raw.

• Protect your joy. Even from your own expectations.

Gilbert isn’t pitching some ethereal muse. She’s saying: this is work. Messy, uncertain, sacred work. You ship, not to win, but to participate. To dance with the thing that showed up when no one else could hear it but you.

And tomorrow?

That whisper might show up again.

Just a nudge. A commit. A phrase. A sketch in your notes app.

Make something with it.

While the flicker’s still warm.