I have a shelf, actually a couple of shelves, where I keep items I’ve worked on. A friend, Emma Boniwell, mentioned that she has one too – we both just worked on the same magazine – but she has a name for this type of shelf. <\/p>\n
And for the life of me I can neither remember quite what it is, or ask her. The former is because I’m rubbish, and the latter is because I’ve already asked her to remind me and I forgot again. <\/p>\n
I think she calls hers a boasting shelf or maybe a bragging one. There’s definitely a very high degree of self-deprecation and even self-criticism in her term for it, but that’s one place where she’s wrong. There is something special about making things. There is something both special and reassuring about a growing number of things you’ve made. <\/p>\n
It’s not bragging, it’s not as if you show anyone else, but it is a bit of pride and that’s damn right. <\/p>\n
And I know this, I believe this, because of my own shelf. <\/p>\n
When something is going badly and you alternate between wishing you’d never started it and being certain you’ll never finish anything, I think it’s reassuring to see a shelf full of what you’ve done before. <\/p>\n
Also daunting. Right this second, I realise that it’s also daunting. Thanks very much. <\/p>\n
Perhaps that’s why, completely unconsciously, I slowly moved my own bragging shelf to behind my Mac. <\/p>\n
So the books and whatever are within reach for the odd time I need to refer to them, but otherwise they’re out of sight. <\/p>\n
Or they were until this week when my Mac died. <\/p>\n
It’s currently being repaired, but for several days now I’ve been having to work on my iPad and my iPhone, and they’re not blocking my view of anything. <\/p>\n
My bragging shelf has reappeared. And now I’m torn over what to do when my Mac returns. There is a bit of me, a huge bit, that likes seeing a dozen books, countless magazine and newspaper issues, DVDs and Doctor Who CDs. <\/p>\n
I like that and I am proud of them, yes. Most of them. <\/p>\n
But there is also a bit of me that likes the notion of them always being there yet only appearing from time to time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a shelf, actually a couple of shelves, where I keep items I’ve worked on. A friend, Emma Boniwell, … Continue reading