It's no joke, beloved. But you can do it. Prepare yourself. Dedicate yourself to it. Love it.

Have the courage to dream a new dream if IT doesn't turn out the way you want it to.

IT almost never does by the way...

We need you. We need your voice. We need your truth. I look forward to meeting you someday soon out here. We will swap stories of survival and triumph. We'll tell of heartache and disappointement. But oh how much better we'll be for it all.

-- Leslie Odom, Jr., "We Are Not All Artists the Same"