[caption id="attachment_1771" align="alignright" width="384"] Sheila Sund[/caption] Funny how easy it is to not do something. The longer you keep from doing it the more impedance builds up. It might be working out, or keeping up a blog, or writing a piece of fiction. Or maybe you put off making a call to a close relative and then it started to become a thing because you had gone so long without calling. Last summer, I had managed to run a streak of almost four months where I posted five days a week. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. But what surprised me was how sudden it happened and how easy it was to not post anything. I had a run of bad luck physically. Multiple doctor visits for different things.  Pneumonia really knocked me on my butt. But even before that I had stopped blogging when I herniated myself. It wasn't like I had to exercise in order to blog, but the two became linked somehow. Then I ended up going to Oklahoma to work for several weeks and after I returned I got sick. But the only way to confront this kind of impedance is head on. You pick up the phone and call and try not to make a big deal about how long it's been. You get out your workout clothes and start back slow and easy. You post something to your blog and make a new commitment to doing it regularly. Maybe not five days a week. Fortunately, the impedance didn't effect my writing too much. I finished my last editing pass a few days ago and sent out the piece to a friend of mine for a beta read. It feels finished. I want to be done with it and move on to the next project. Finishing that project has brought me to a new starting line. I'm healthy again. I'm going to start exercising regularly next week and I've started working on my next project. Part of this reboot comes with some changes. If you have been following me you may have noticed a name change, both for me and for the web address. I decided on using a pen name and I bought a new domain name for the blog. I had been doing some ancestry research and discovered I had three grandfathers with the name Hieronymus. Hawkes is another family surname and I like the alliteration. I have a new Facebook page and a new Twitter persona. I've been on Twitter for almost twelve years, so starting over is a bit daunting. My new project is a piece that I started while I was working on my MFA, just for a palette cleanser in between edits. It was something that was as close to universally liked as anything I had written before. I only have about 7000 words, but the ideas are solid and the thing has some real potential. I debated throwing it all out and starting over. I'm actually still debating that, but I did some work on the opening chapter and I may keep it. I am toying with the idea of cutting some of it out and creating a short story out of it as a teaser for the novel. I would have to cut it down by about half to get where I would need for the word count. It would be a good exercise.