We all have them – areas of discomfort that even talking about them makes us squirm – much less write them down on paper for all read and draw judgement. These escritorial ( I think I made that word up) blindspots are the pages that we skirt around, skim over and fail to tackle with any serious consideration. They remain on the page, half written, trite, vapid and vague – taunting us to revisit and make the text worthy of inclusion in the book. Their constant reminder – that these are issues in our own lives that must be addressed; otherwise they will continue to appear on the page as if highlighted in fluorescent yellow.
To some these may be scenes of violence, romantic, text with a lot of gore or harming the proverbial baby kitten. They are often approached with anguish where you find yourself rearranging your sock drawer for the umpteenth time, rather than continue writing the prose.
Agreed, this may be an area in our psyche that needs some TLC, perhaps exposing the writers’ vulnerabilities. Or perhaps a fear, that by putting the words down on paper, may self-implicate the author as also being guilty in the crime. My daughter, having proofread some of my writing, blamed me (not the character) for the death of an animal in one of my scenes. (No I have never killed an animal – I would make a pretty crap hunter.)
I am left wondering whether the reader can pick up on these shortcomings. When reading the text within a book – is there an AHA moment, where you can tell this author has issues with dot dot dot, with critiques and reviews ready, willing and able to shout such shortcomings into the cyber-megaphone of the Internet.
Perhaps upon the 87th edit of such a scene, we may pull the curtain over our foibles and still keep such weaknesses to ourselves.