Ready? Set:

There. I have broken the blank of the page. The rest will come easier.

That's the most terrifying place, isn't it? The moment just before a beginning. All the uncertainty, foreboding, a vast space of emptiness that must be filled with your footsteps, and the end impossibly far off, and too many thoughts of what may-be flood the brain until you are drowning.

But once that first word is written, that first step taken, when living replaces imagining, the journey ahead suddenly seems more manageable. Your concentration turns from intangible, oppressive fears to the reality of  what is before you, and you discover (with some surprise) that you have just enough strength for this.

There will certainly be moments of doubt, of excruciating pain, and you will wish for nothing more than to curl up and sleep for the rest of eternity, shut your eyes against the vicious kaleidoscope of colors and noise and shards of light that bleed into your vision. But remember how far you have come, the page behind you strewn with letters, and what a wonderful story they will speak when you have reached the end. Remember this, and you will find yourself standing again, you will find yourself moving again.

In the beginning, however--that is the most difficult part. Ears straining for a gunshot that exists only in the mind. Eyes staring wide at the empty that screams impossible. There is no stopwatch; time is always ticking away. You cannot wait forever. Go.