Creative Writing Workshop

Lesson 1: What is Creativity?

The Creative Process Continued

Sometimes solutions or breakthroughs are unexpected. That’s the way it was with Monte Unger, a freelance writer and editor.

Unger’s creative light flashed on one day when he was confronted with a problem he couldn’t solve. It was his wife’s birthday, and he wanted to make her “big-four-O” a happy one. His wife had planned to be away, and he decided to line the sidewalk to their front porch with daisies and put up an enormous, “Happy Birthday,” sign.

Then his anxiety took control. He worried about what the neighbors would think about the sign and the flowers. Besides, the flowers would cost too much, and he didn’t have enough vases to hold them.

Unger’s anxiety blocked a unique solution until he realized that his inventive nature came from God. This time he didn’t let the problem squash his originality, and he took an innovative course of action. Here’s how he tells it:

"Our sons and I went out into the fields near where we lived and collected dozens of long-stemmed black-eyed Susans. In the basement of our house we found several boxes of old jars that Linda had been collecting — again free!

We filled the jars with water and turned the walkway into a path of flowers. We found a huge sheet of paper painted our message of love, and taped the sign to the front porch. All of the work was worth it. We had successfully softened her entrance into her forties."

Unger confesses that the truth of his break through changed his approach to problems. When he paid attention to his inner light, he found fresh new ways of thinking!

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