Vanessa McKay

The Power of a Creative Assets Inventory

When I first suggest to women that they create a “Creative Assets Inventory,” I’m often met with puzzled looks. “Assets?” they ask. “I’m not sure I have any creative assets worth cataloguing.”

This response never surprises me, but it always saddens me. Because what these women don’t yet realise is that they’re sitting on a treasure trove of creative material that would make any younger writer envious.

What Is a Creative Assets Inventory?

A Creative Assets Inventory is exactly what it sounds like: a comprehensive catalogue of all the experiences, skills, relationships, challenges, and wisdom you’ve accumulated over your decades of living. But it’s more than just a list—it’s a strategic mapping of your unique creative resources.

Think of it as an archaeological dig through your own life, where every experience becomes a potential artifact for your writing. That difficult divorce? Creative gold. Your unconventional career path? Narrative treasure. The way you learned to navigate your mother’s dementia? Pure storytelling platinum.

The concept of inventorying life experiences as creative material isn’t entirely new, though I’ve adapted it specifically for women in their wisdom years. The practice draws from several sources:

Business asset management provided the framework—the idea that you can’t leverage what you don’t acknowledge or catalogue. In business, you inventory your assets to understand your competitive advantages. Why not apply the same strategic thinking to your creative life?

Narrative therapy techniques also influenced this approach. Therapists like Michael White and David Epston pioneered methods for helping people identify and externalise their skills and knowledge, recognising that we often carry wisdom we don’t even realise we possess.

The storytelling traditions of indigenous cultures, where elders are recognised as the keepers of valuable stories and wisdom, reminded me that age brings narrative wealth, not creative poverty.

This inventory process emerged from my own experience and that of countless women I’ve worked with who initially believed they had “nothing interesting to write about.” Time and again, I watched as this systematic exploration revealed rich veins of material they’d completely overlooked.

Why This Matters More After 50

Here’s what I’ve observed: younger writers often struggle with not having enough life experience to draw from. They worry about authenticity, about writing what they know when they feel they haven’t yet lived enough to know much.

Women over 50 have the opposite challenge. You’ve lived so much that you can’t see the forest for the trees. You’ve normalised extraordinary experiences because they’re simply part of your life story. You’ve learned to minimize your struggles because you “got through them.” You’ve internalised the message that your particular path—especially if it included traditional women’s roles—isn’t “interesting enough” for good writing.

The Creative Assets Inventory challenges these assumptions.

How to Create Your Own Creative Assets Inventory

Start by creating five categories, each on its own page or document:

1. Pivotal Experiences: list the moments that changed you, challenged you, or revealed something important about yourself or the world. Include both positive and difficult experiences. Don’t judge their “worthiness”—just document them.

2. Unique Skills and Knowledge: what do you know how to do that others might not? This includes professional skills, but also life skills: How to calm a screaming toddler in a grocery store. How to pack a house when your marriage is ending. How to advocate for an elderly parent in a medical system. How to rebuild confidence after betrayal.

3. Relationships and Characters: who are the memorable people in your life? The difficult ones often make the best material. Include family members, mentors, adversaries, brief encounters that stuck with you, and people who taught you something important (even if they didn’t mean to).

4. Places and Environments: where have you lived, worked, traveled, or spent significant time? What did these places teach you? How did they shape you? Include both external places and internal landscapes—the geography of your emotional life.

5. Wisdom and Insights: what do you know now that you wish you’d known at 20? What hard-won wisdom do you carry? What would you tell your younger self? What truths have you discovered about love, loss, parenting, work, friendship, or simply being human?

The Magic of Recognition

Something remarkable happens when women complete this inventory: they begin to see their lives as rich source material rather than ordinary existence. They recognise patterns, themes, and threads that could become powerful narratives.

More importantly, they value their own experience in a new way. They stop apologising for their unconventional paths and start celebrating their unique perspectives.

Your Creative Goldmine Awaits

You’ve been accumulating creative assets your entire life. Every challenge you’ve navigated, every relationship you’ve learned from, every skill you’ve developed, every insight you’ve gained, these aren’t just life experiences. They’re your creative inheritance.

Your Creative Assets Inventory isn’t just a writing exercise; it’s an act of reclamation. You’re reclaiming the value of your experience, the worth of your perspective, and the richness of your story.

Grab a notebook, pour yourself a cup of tea, and begin the archaeology of your own life. You might be surprised by the treasures you uncover.

What experiences from your life do you think might surprise others if they knew about them? Start there—and trust me, you have more creative gold than you realise.

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This post is adapted from “The Wise Woman Writes: Embracing Your Creative Voice After 50.” If you’re ready to dive deeper into reclaiming your creative voice, pre-order my book The Wise Woman Writes, and please join my email list.