I’ve been told to never start a story with “once upon a time.” And yet, when the page and the mind are blank alike, using “once upon a time” doesn’t seem so bad after all. Although I have been moving well into the English language for eight years, I sometimes still start with Once upon a time…

In the quiet recesses of a writer’s mind, there lay a vast expanse of untamed ideas and unspoken stories. The writer sat before a blank screen, fingers poised over the keyboard, and a mind teeming with thoughts and emotions yearning to be captured in words. 

But the process of writing was no gentle stroll through a sunlit meadow; it was an arduous climb up the steepest of mountains. Each word was a boulder, and every sentence felt like a precipice. Doubt, a relentless storm, raged within the writer, threatening to drown the incipient ideas in a deluge of insecurity.

The writer's pursuit of perfection was a tireless battle, where each phrase underwent endless scrutiny, and every paragraph felt inadequate. The words were an elusive quarry, darting like shadows in the writer's mind, difficult to capture and convey on the page.

Time flowed like a relentless river, each minute slipping through the writer's grasp, while the page remained stubbornly bare. Writing was an act of extracting thoughts from the depths of the soul, an exercise in patience and persistence. It was not an endeavor for the faint of heart.

Yet, the writer soldiered on, compelled by an unrelenting desire to give life to the thoughts that had taken root within. Through the struggle, the frustration, and the occasional flashes of brilliance, the act of writing remained a beacon, a testament to the human spirit's unwavering pursuit of expression.

Once upon a time, a writer sat at a desk, staring at the blank screen, realizing how daunting it could be to begin writing. Once upon a time, the words seemed to elude the writer, evading capture like wisps of smoke in the wind. Once upon a time, self-doubt crept in, whispering that those thoughts were not worth sharing, and the task at hand was undefeatable. Once upon a time, the writer learned that the hardest part of writing was often the very act of beginning, but with perseverance, even the most formidable words could find their place on the page.