The Only Eyes That Matter

I have this fear in me, a fear that I’m sure I share with a bunch of other creative-types, on the nature of “completeness”. Even when I don’t have an outline for a piece, I still find myself making a list of things I want to mention in my head, a mental checklist of everything -- sometimes in order, sometimes not -- that I want to talk about. Another thing about me is that I am terrified of killing my darlings (though, to be fair, the phrase isn’t something easy like, “You have to sweep away your crap”). This means that whenever I put something out into the public eye, whether that be for assignments or this blog or anything else, I’m generally not thinking about how good the piece is as it stands, I’m too busy thinking about what content didn’t make it.

I remember at the beginning of one of my more recent workshops, I was asked: “Is there anything you want us to talk specifically about your piece?” I didn’t really have an answer to that. I remember saying, “No, I’m still in the ‘I hate this’ phase of editing,” but that wasn’t really true. I was thinking about how I didn’t really end the piece, it kind of just drifted off as soon as the main character ran out of people to talk to.

The workshop didn’t notice or at least didn’t say it during the workshop itself. Some people wanted to “know more” in a general sense, but they only really noted that in response letters I read later. They liked it. They really did.

What I forgot was that I was looking at the negative space of the piece, the parts that I had left out thinking everybody else would see them. But the audience never gets to see that part of the piece, just whatever’s on the page in front of them.

There was a time where I would be gently reminded to write more details, to make sure that everything in my head was written down so that the audience could see it. I think this fear comes from that, that feeling of not being able to translate those imaginary images into physical sentences.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, really. Just trying to put words to the knot in my stomach whenever I let other people see what I’m working on. I’ve definitely had to cut anecdotes from this post. I just hope you won’t be able to see where.

-F