When it comes to writing or music or painting or dance or any other hellish vocation you are condemned to do, there is no end. The "going off into the sunset" of movies never happens. Except when you die. Then there's a sunset, but you're dead so you don't know the sun is going down on you.
Beginning can feel futile, especially if finishing feels like death and not finishing feels like death that won't come. Either way, the terror of sitting down to find out only makes those options worse.
When I was still imprisoned in music studies, Florence would order "Répétez!" and demand "Commence!"
When I escaped clef notes and bar lines into words and paragraphs, she'd say, "You know writing is really just rewriting", and "Sitting down is half the battle."
She also said, "Show me a dirty house and I'll show you a woman of character."
Thanks, Mom.
But, I had to clean the house first.
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