Fear of Writing the First Line

First writing prompt from A Year of Writing Dangerously by Barbara Abercrombie:

"What is your metaphor for fear of writing that first line?"

I go back to the world with my lighthouse for this and probably all other metaphors that concern my writing.

Fear of writing the first line means I am stuck in the forest. I can't see that it must end - that if I just keep walking I will emerge on the banks of the road that leads down to the rocky beach and my lighthouse where everyone waits for me. Although in reality I enjoy feeling lost within a forest's borders, able to immerse myself in nature, in my worlds of words that feeling turns into a muffling sense of panic. The trees around me lace close together and block out daylight. They silence the whisper of wind and water. It takes all of my fortitude to drag my baffled gaze down from their branches and look ahead. There are gaps between the trunks of those trees, and if I just keep walking eventually the sunlight will filter down to dapple the forest floor at my feet.

Most of the time when I am stuck in the forest, all I do is sit on a rock and stare into the tangle of dark tree limbs. I cannot break my staring until a bird flits through my field of vision (sudden inspiration), or - best of all - my fox appears to show me the path out again (muse brings me back to a good writing state of mind).

I spent two years working in the woods and loved it (most of the time). But getting stuck in their midst does seem the most apt metaphor I can think of for when I cannot even get one line of writing down.