the pain—and power—of editing

"You can write, but you can't edit."

That lyric, from one of my favorite Regina Spektor songs, has been echoing in my mind lately. I’m pretty sure it’s meant as a dig—and honestly, I get it. Editing is hard.

I’m deep in the editing trenches right now, doing the final read-through of our upcoming book, storytelling with data: before & after. This time, I’ve printed the pages out. There’s something different—almost grounding—about reading and correcting by hand. You turn each page. You circle with pen. You stick little notes to flag every tiny change. The process demands focus. It’s tactile. It’s slow. It’s deliberate.

And it’s exhausting.

It takes a ton of energy to go through material you’ve seen so many times with fresh eyes—to keep spotting opportunities for improvement and issues that somehow slipped through earlier rounds. But I fully believe that this painstaking attention to detail, both in the words and the visuals, is what transforms a good product into a great one.

In a way, the process mirrors what we teach. A meta-lesson in before & after is just this: editing is essential. We help our clients look at their graphs, slides, and stories with new eyes. We coach them through iteration, refinement, clarity. It's in the editing that data stories truly come to life.

So while Regina might be right that writing is easier than editing, I’ve learned that embracing the hard parts is what makes the final product shine.

Our new book, storytelling with data: before & after, is coming soon—preorder now if you’d like to be among the first to see the results of all this editing.