George is BACK!

Since many of you are new here, I have to backtrack a little.

If you've never seen the speech by Elizabeth Gilbert about having a writing genius, you should...so follow the link:

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity Video on TED.com

Sorry I didn't make it look prettier and imbed the video, but I'm buried under 8 inches of snow with two kids stuck in the house and a dog who is suddenly too delicate to do his business because of, you guessed it, 8 inches of snow.

Though to be fair, when he raises his leg his privates are still buried 2 inches below sunshine, so I don't know that I could do my business with that kind of cold down there either.

Anyway...

George is BACK!

That is what I call my creative genius, who's been play hookie since this summer.

I've been struggling at my computer for a rewrite that's taking half of forever, always getting stuck at Chapter 8, waiting for George to show.

And he wasn't.

And he wasn't.

And he wasn't.

So I said, "Fine, George. I'm going to write whatever I d@*n well please." And I started to butcher my story. Total meat cleaver job, though I didn't go so far as bringing in a vampire.

And George showed up, "Fine. All right. So much for holidays and paid vacations. I'm here."

He's been working, maybe a little begrudgingly, ever since. All the way up to Chapter 14. Though I'm still trying to figure out just where he went that he got a paid vacation. Maybe he was visiting Elizabeth.

Anyway...

What do you do when your creative genius is playing hookie? How do you get him/her to show up and do their part of the job, whether it's pounding out a rewrite or getting your kids to do their homework?