C.R.E.A.T.E. with Cathy Pickens

This past Saturday, a friend and I drove to Charleston, S.C., to hear Cathy Pickens speak about C.R.E.A.T.E. (Capture, Ramble, Engage, Act, Tweak, Expand). She described her research, discoveries, and methodology about how creativity can he harnessed, developed, and nurtured.

Known in the mystery writing community as a past President of Sisters in Crime and current Secretary of the Mystery Writers of America, Cathy writes the award-winning Southern Fried series, featuring lawyer Avery Andrews who returns to her small upstate South Carolina town to practice law and ends up solving murders. At Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cathy is recognized as an award-winning administrator and professor of business law and ethics.

Into this mix of accomplishment, she has brought her own quest to learn how the creative mind operates and as a result has written a nonfiction book, C.R.E.A.T.E....Your Path. Hopefully, it will be published soon, because what Cathy has to say is important, inspiring, and invigorating for both business and fiction writing pursuits.

Cathy begins her presentation by handing participants a page with twelve circles and asks that they draw as many things with circles as possible as quickly as they can. When she calls time, she has the class compare results. Some draw within each circle, others draw around each circle, and still others combine several circles to create a picture. No answer is wrong. Seeing the variety opens minds to new approaches.

Even though she believes persistence trumps talent, Cathy has discovered that every creative venture is developed in stages. By using the acronym C.R.E.A.T.E., she demonstrates the progression of the creative process. The first stage is to "capture," or observe or recognize the potential of ideas. Cathy recommends using your filing system of preference. She keeps a hand-written notebook handy to record observations, leaving space to categorize entries and provide a rough index when the notebook is full.

The second is to "ramble." At this point, the creator has to venture out of his comfort zone, read and study what he wants to do, test his limits, and confront his fears. Cathy speaks about a childhood experience of telling her grandfather, a man adept at dealing with children, that she was afraid. He gave her comfort by responding, "What's the worst thing that can happen? They may kill you, but they can't eat you." (I think it prophetic that a future mystery author would find that phrase reassuring. After all, isn't it part of the hero's journey to encounter a symbolic death in order to revive and reestablish himself?)

Stage three is to "engage," or encounter "the voice of doom" yet continue on with the task. The fourth stage is to settle down to work, to "act." Stage five is to "tweak," to edit or revise. Cathy cautions to make this fifth stage an internal process at first, then solicit feedback gradually so the creator maintains control in developing the result. Finally, the sixth stage is to "expand," or when you reach the end of one project, be ready to proceed to the next.

Anyone who has heard Cathy speak knows that she brings life experiences and humor to her presentations and that she can distill a concept as well as provide excellent additional resources for participants who wish to delve further into a topic. If you have the opportunity to attend her C.R.E.A.T.E. workshop, I strongly encourage you to go. What you learn will help you approach any task with new eyes and enhanced vision.

What have you done lately to spur your creative juices?