Kill Your Darlings
The Pain of Editing
There’s a time for certain ideas to arrive,
and they find a way
to express themselves through us.
- Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”
It’s been a beautiful summer day. I’ve spent time outside, finished a long to-do list, and settled down for the evening. I pick up the guitar, and it hits. This idea, forming from all the thoughts I’ve been having, begins to take shape through lyrics and simple chords.
Over the next few months, the song develops further, changes are made to lyrics, a new bridge section is created. This thing is taking shape pretty well. While my friend Hebron is helping me on a commercial shoot, I ask if he’d mind assisting me in recording. He’s a fantastic musician producing and publishing his own work.
The day finally comes to record and it’s a mess. You can read about that here. Overall the bones are there and there’s a road map, but if I’m being honest, the song just isn’t one to let free. Maybe it needs a different tempo, a higher key, guitar strings that are less bright, a change in structure. There’s something about it that just doesn’t work musically beyond my difficulties recording.
All of that work and excitement. All of that preparation. All of those nerves and facing the red light. For what? To discard the final result?
Yep. And that’s just the way it is.
In addition to getting to the heart of the work, through this brutal edit, we change our relationship to it. We come to understand its underlying structure and realize what truly matters, to disconnect from the the attachment of making it and see it for what it is. - Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”
There are times our ideas, projects, even our dreams don’t make the cut. No matter how much we’ve invested into them, the final product doesn’t live up to where it needs to be.
“Kill your darlings” is the expression that comes to mind.1 When I’m editing video work, many of my favorite shots end up on the “cutting room floor.” Why? They just don’t serve the story. When I’m working through photos, some of them have a great artistic vibe, but they don’t help the client achieve their goals as well as the more straightforward frames.
This can be incredibly frustrating, knowing how much time and effort (and sometimes resources) have been poured into a project. Failure to abandon this dead end and move on to other projects is called the “sunk cost fallacy.” Just because you invested heavily, doesn’t always mean you make the profit or break even. Eventually, pursuing ideas and life comes at a loss.
In nature, some seeds lie dormant in anticipation of the season most conducive to their growth…There are ideas whose time has not yet come. Or perhaps their time has come, but you are not yet ready to engage with them. Other times, developing a different seed may shed light on a dormant one.
- Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”
But not everything that gets cut is destined to stay gone or hidden forever. It could be it’s just a matter of patience and waiting for the right opportunity. You feel in your soul some elements have a purpose and fiercely hold on to them. The song that gets shelved may find another life when you realize how to structure it differently. The unused commercial video and photos may make it into a demo reel. Maybe the dream is worth pursuing, it just isn’t time for it…yet. Sometimes it takes the right circumstances to bring them to their most beautiful and rewarding form. You will be blessed for your patience.
Keep producing. Keep writing, shooting, recording. Above all, keep dreaming and dream big. Don’t let anyone else tell you it’s impossible. You might have to realize that yourself, but don’t edit yourself too early.
Trust your gut, trust your heart. Have patience. Let God bless your efforts when the time is right.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kill_one’s_darlings