In my old office, I had a bookshelf on which I put one of everything I’d ever worked on. It was one of those slap-together, particle-board cheapies from Staples, taller than me, with five shelves. I filled it up a while back and had started in on a new shelf. I’m proud of my work, and I figured if I didn’t display it, who would?
In the new office, though, I don’t have space for two or more shelves of books, so I’ve decided to put away projects on which I wasn’t a primary creative–things that I edited or produced but didn’t write. The metric ton of products we put out when I was at Pinnacle is mostly gone, for instance, as it occupied a couple shelves all by itself.
For other projects, I’m only keeping out a few representative bits. I put away the binders full of WildStorms cards, for instance, and most of the R.E.V.s toys too. They just suck up too much space, especially since I’m on to other things now, and I need those shelves for reference and research books.
It’s a lot of stuff, but that’s what you end up with when you’ve been working on things like this for nearly 20 years. Time to trim back the past, though, lest it suffocate the future.
