Here's one i picked up in your post that you may reflect upon;
"My biggest fear is that I get off to a bad start and have to execute a stop loss early, dropping $200-300 at a time."
We sometimes are attracted to that which we want to resist. I find concentrating on the trade you want is more useful than concentrating on the $$ (+ or -).
Having said this, if your risk is defined and appropriate then it will be fine. Some of the best traders in the world have started with losses and is a great lesson in itself for a number of reasons, the smaller the better though.
I note your time on HC and suspect you are already a seasoned trader and probably not telling you anything new :)
