I’m not talking about what we can’t see that’s right in front of us.
About when we are tired and over-worked. Our mind is on a different course and we just don’t see the missing comma, the grocer’s apostrophe, or the homonym.
I’m talking about being emotionally involved in our writing.
About being so close up to the work we can’t bear to listen to the tiny whisper of doubt.
The small voice that says, look again at that brilliant piece of prose, or that passage that took hours to write.
(By the way, here’s a tip for nothing: if it was hard to write, it’s probably hard to read.)
I’m talking about the darlings in the murderous injunction.
Editing: create some distance from your work (time, emotion) and work out what you need to do about them.
Keep? Revise? Or excise?