It is a damp Monday morning - and I sit looking out at the familiar fall dinosaur weather rising from a small front yard. It is coming, that season of indoorness; that season of inwardness that torments and inspires by turn. New work is on my desk - new roads inside my head that must be forged. The green ribbon of this summer's wedding invitation seems out of sync with the mood, and I push it aside in favor of a leather agenda.

Stephen King writes, "The scariest moment is just before you start."

It is time to begin.