Craft Advice from Elizabeth Gilbert

On shoeboxes full of research, writing first drafts in your head, nonfiction v. fiction, and the importance of writing books to people rather than for them.

Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds.

Liz’s home office

Elizabeth Gilbert

has the rare gift of being able to write short stories, novels, essays, memoirs, and narrative nonfiction—and to do each beautifully! Her worlds—remembered or conjured—are vibrant and detailed and exquisitely compelling. And also varied: restaurants in Italy, ashrams in India, ranches in Wyoming, Manhattan in the forties, Tahiti in the 1800’s and much more. Alive with botanists and costume designers and lobstermen and little dogs and Elizabeth herself, it’s impossible not to get lost in these magnificent (and often bestselling) worlds. And also impossible not to get lost in the elegant, playful, piercing, tender, driven prose.

How does Liz do it? Let’s find out!

Where do you write?

Depends. If I'm writing a novel, because my novels are very heavily research driven, I need to be home. And home is the church that I own in New Jersey where all my books are and also where all my notes are. I take really extensive notes, and I have a very complex note taking system.

For City of Girls, I have six shoebox-size cardboard boxes filled with index cards with thousands and thousands and thousands of notes. They’re divided into each character and each topic. I need to be where the boxes are. I need to be in silence. I need to be in solitude.

If I'm writing a memoir, I don't need access to that. I'm writing a memoir right now, and I'm traveling. I can write for an hour every morning, and then go be social with people. My ideal for writing is always to be completely alone. But it's not always feasible, because apparently there are other people in the world.

You write an hour a day?