You stare at the empty word document. It stares back at you, its vast whiteness left currently unmarred from any of your thoughts.

Start it over, your mind whispers. Save a chapter here and there if you must, but start it over.

Again? Really? 

Except you know the changes you want to make — the changes you need to make, to have the strongest opening possible. These are the pages that will determine your hopes and dreams, after all. The same fifty pages that you have spent ten years of your life fretting over, desperate to get perfect. 

The same fifty pages you know currently aren’t perfect. Fifty pages you don’t know if you can get perfect. But you’re gonna have to try. Want to put your best foot forward and have him critique something you know is strong — something you know would truly be ready for the potentially never-ending critique.

You stare at the blank page again. Hover your cursor over it, and click. As your hands settle over the keys, you tell yourself only one thing:

Fifty pages is nothing.