Drawing on my own background as an aspiring writer, I highlight the core difference between little-c (everyday creativity) and Big-C (genius) before talking about the creation (with Ron Beghetto) of the four Cs model of creativity. Mini-c is creativity that is personally meaningful to the creator, even if it does not resound with others. Indeed, there are many reasons why creative work may not reach an audience, which is the topic of the CASE (Capital Awareness Spark Exceptionality) model. How does mini-c advance to little-c? One key is getting, and responding to, good feedback and critiques of one’s work. Another is improving creative metacognition, which has two parts: understanding your own creative strengths and weaknesses and knowing when (or when not) to be creative.

Creativity can be seen in many facets of our lives, from experimenting with your dinner recipes or using ingenuity to resolve problems to inventing a new technology or working as a professional artist. Researchers are increasingly moving beyond investigating creativity in the lab to examine how and when creativity occurs in people’s everyday lives and environments. This chapter provides an overview of ecological momentary assessment techniques (i.e., daily dairy and experience sampling methods) commonly used in creativity research. To illustrate how ecological momentary assessment methods have featured in creativity research, I review several exemplars of research focused on creativity in daily life.

This chapter explores the broader topic of creativity and positive outcomes, of which positive emotions are one. The other positive outcomes we focus on include socialization, personal growth, meaning/legacy, and flow. We first describe the various models of well-being that feature these outcomes, such as subjective well-being (SWB; Diener, 1984), psychological well-being (Ryff, 1995), flourishing (Seligman, 2011), and self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In the bulk of this chapter, we discuss the existing research in the creativity field related to each of these five outcomes. Major progress on this topic has been made in recent years, offering much to discuss.

Creativity, an apex of consciousness, contains the altered states of a creative trance that are treasured across cultures and time. Ranging from the creativity of everyday life to the reveries that inspire works of science and art to the fast-moving action of sports that shape and reshape personal goals, the creative trance can also be a transcendent experience, an ecstasy using the body’s own pharmacology. There are multiple depths of a creative trance, from light enjoyable flow states to deep experiences obliterating all external stimuli. The degree of depth can correlate with the psychological capacity for absorption. The creative trance relates to the Five-Factor Model of Personality, Openness, Big-C and little-c creativity, Wallas’ four-stage creative process, and Barron’s concept of a habitually creative person. The creative trance can be a pivot to personal transformation, creating new work and a new view of the world, and may also bring the capacity for transcendence.

The focus of this chapter is on diverse forms of creative expression in old age using a life-course framework. We consider age-related changes in opportunities for and expressions of creativity. Social and environmental influences on late-life creative expression are explored. We link our understanding of late-life creativity to traditional aspects of creativity studies, including creative potential, eminent creativity, and everyday creativity. Consistent with our life-course orientation, we consider age-related changes and differences in the above forms of creativity. We review creativity-enhancing interventions in relation to everyday creativity. A major contribution of our work relates to focus on the use of proactive problem-solving strategies to address late-life challenges creatively. Novel solutions to normative stressors of aging pose exemplars of the value of late-life creativity. Creative problem solving is proposed as key to ensuring a meaningful and successful old age.