Some people will tell you that art is hard. It is. While there is no question that art is more interesting and engaging than thousands of other jobs, it’s not easy. There are difficulties in every art: sculpture, photography, painting, writing, dance, acting, directing, choreography. Not only do all arts have predictable associated difficulties, but individual artists bring their own individual issues to the work. Yes, art is hard.

Among all of the difficulties associated with any given art, perhaps one of the hardest is editing. Some believe that editing is simply a matter of correcting a few obvious things and polishing a little. Such people, I would suggest, are either amazingly good or an amazingly bad artists. Or perhaps they are simply unaware that editing one’s work stringently will invariably make that work better.

Most of us create in flow or some other altered state, so often our art needs fine-tuning. Editing is the procedure by which we refine our previously rough work. It is not simply correcting a few obvious things and polishing; it is an exacting and difficult process.

The difficulty stems from the fact that we must look at our work with what amounts to new eyes. These “new eyes” give us the necessary objectivity and discipline to do the job. The task is to see and correct all flaws, lapses, inconsistencies, and omissions. We must complete all ideas that are incomplete and fill in any holes we might find. At the same time we need to cut away the irrelevant and unnecessary. Even digressions, perfectly acceptable in most art, must be made somehow relevant or removed.

While completing, filling-in, and modifying are sometimes tough, it’s the cutting-away that is the most difficult and causes the most concern. When we create, our minds make jumps and connections, which, while valid, may not be relevant to the current project. Such elements must be either brought into relevance or excised. Often, the latter is the correct solution, but it’s not easy, particularly when the portion to be removed is good work. Our inner editor, however, is telling us that because of a lack of relevance that good work needs to be on the cutting room floor.

But, as much as we dislike our own work—the case for many never-satisfied artists—it is still part of us and somehow deserves our protection. This means that our objectivity and discipline can never waver. We must cut out every scrap that does not contribute to the piece in question. We must look at every line, shape, action, stoke, step, movement, paragraph, and syllable to determine whether it contributes to the work or does not. If it does not, it has to go.

This does not mean, however, that those excised elements—particularly the good ones—have to be assigned to the trash; they just can’t be used in this project. Perhaps the excised portions can be stored—in a notebook or digital file or the back of the studio or a storage area or somewhere else. Perhaps they can be used elsewhere: perhaps they can add dimension to another project, or perhaps they can form the basis for an entirely new project. What they cannot be is part of the current work.

And that may cause us some angst and perhaps even some tears, but it has to be. We must edit hard. Only that way can our work be the best it can be.