An Exhortation: On Second Thoughts

Gustav

Good evening, Brave Writers. Today I wish to share with you the cautionary tale of a young writer named — ah, let us call her Felicia Alicia McPecia, to protect what scanty shreds of privacy she retains. (I am well aware that this weak pseudonym will do little to deter astute readers from discerning her true identity; I can only beg you to allow Miss McPecia to live out her days of squalor and ignominy unmolested.) Her tale is not, as you might think, a warning against the cruel critics who drove her to drink, gambling, and madness, but a warning against second thoughts.

Miss McPecia first came to the Directorate’s attention when she began her epic work, a sixteen-part saga involving Vikings, dragons, modern banking conspiracies, sentient tattoos, and a dozen other unlikely items. It seemed a ghastly mish-mash to me, though the quality of her work was not our concern: we feared that sixteen volumes might prove too much for any author. We put her on a special Watch List as soon as she began to blather about the work to her writing group, and vowed to keep her typing diligently away, however incoherent her vision for the work might be.

At first, it seemed our suspicions were misplaced. Not only did Miss McPecia blaze through her first draft with a speed some called “unseemly,” but the first volume found a publisher and popular success! Incredible — but the reading public’s taste has never been less than utterly abhorrent.

Unfortunately, publication was the last good thing to happen to Miss McPecia. For no sooner had her volume appeared on the shelf, when she began to have second thoughts. I should not have ended the volume with the banker’s firey Viking funeral, she mused;  for it will make the jollity of the opening of the next volume appear unseemly. No matter; all she had to do was rearrange the scenes of the second volume a bit, to open with a bit more gravitas. No matter!

Poor foolish Miss McPecia.

For second thoughts, like sorrows and mosquitoes, come not as single spies but as batallions.

Once she allowed the first of the legion past her guard, the way was clear for the rest, and she was beset. I should change the heroine to a dog! For everyone adores dogs! she thought, and then Why aren’t there any robots in this beastly novel? and I have not drunk enough absinthe to write this scene! and What on earth will Great-Aunt Maureen Laureen McFlorine think of the steamy scene in Chapter Sixty-Nine? I should have made it more sedate!

And just like that, all hope was lost, for Miss McPecia was consumed by second thoughts.  She found herself unable to even begin her second novel, for second thoughts had devoured her mind and, indeed, her very soul, and left her as nothing more than an empty (but attractive) vessel in which second thoughts could cavort licentiously. All trace of creativity had been permanently erradicated.

Her publisher was distraught, and sent Miss McPecia’s editrix to help her regain her will to write. But the poor editrix was no match for the vast wave of Miss MicPecia’s second thoughts, and before long, succumbed to her own second thoughts, and joined Miss McPecia at the docks for gambling, opium-smoking, and other shameful behavior, all documented in the tabloids of the day.

It is a tragic tale, Brave Writers. Let it not become yours.

All are vulnerable.

Why, even seasoned Directorate agents such as myself can be vulnerable to the deadly plague of second thoughts. I find myself hesitating before posting this: for why was the Directorate not able to save Miss McPecia from herself? Indeed; mistakes, hideous and unforgiveable, were made. I myself was so absorbed by Miss McPecia’s novel that I did not pay sufficient attention to her progress on its sequels; I shall bear the stench of that failure for the rest of my life.

Do I not have my own second thoughts about that misbegotten Manifesto that cost so dearly? Do I not have my own dark cloak of second thoughts wrapped around me at all times?

Indeed.

But I cannot allow myself to fall, unwary, into the same trap, and allow myself to become mired in the dark cesspool of second thoughts. I must summon all my courage, and proceed. Thus I present:

Three Steps to Avoid Succumbing to Swarms of Second Thoughts.

1. Be aware. Miss McPecia was an innocent: she did not understand the risk she faced. Now that you have read this missive, you are forewarned, and will approach the shadows in your path with trepidation and caution.

2. Be impervious. Do not listen. Hold your vision, however improbable, unlikely, bizarre, and wrong it may be: hold your vision tight, and write it. Do not allow second thoughts to sway you away from your path. Let your vision be a mighty shield; let it deflect all sorrows, mosquitoes, and second thoughts.

3. Be implacable. Simply write, undaunted. Subsite sermonem statim et scribe.

Your Turn.

What second thoughts beset you? Bring them to light here, that we may help you with their banishment.