I was mulling over one of my collection of non-precious and semi-precious stones just the other day. I’ve collected them for years from all my travels across the southern portion of the US and Mexico. Their total combined value is most likely far less than what it cost me to purchase or travel to dig them up from mother earth.
Nevertheless, I am a crow at heart and one of the shiny objects had caught my fancy this particular day. I had accidentally left this brightly amber stone with it’s pepper-speckled inclusions in a place where the sun regularly creases the room it was in.
I also noticed that the side where the sun hit, had begun to bleach the color from one of the facets and quickly nabbed it into my hand.
I gave it a repentant rinse of water (as if to console my blunder) and a glance before I put it away with its fellow companions.
What I noticed reminded me of our craft of writing.
This particular gem had six facets, wide and flat, all sloping up to a sharp point. It was then I remembered why I’d left this stone out of the collection; the tip was somewhat chipped and I saw it as somehow damaged goods. I also remembered watching a time-lapse journey of the growth of a typical crystal which is nothing less than amazing in itself.
At the time I happened to be writing a story with six divergent characters, trying to carefully knit their unique perspectives together into the apex of my tale. I compared each facet to one of my characters; none of the facets were perfect although one was close. On closer inspection, the others weren’t nearly as perfect as I’d thought. One was jagged and wide, coarse with wavy lines; the others also had their particular misfortunes. However, it was then I noticed three things in particular.
- First, each side in particular may not have been perfect, but the whole of the sum was magnificent.
- Secondly, every facet was knitted firmly to two of the other facets on either side.
- Third, together they formed the ending, the perfect apex for how they were grown, no matter how imperfect the chip at the end.
I saw a correlation to my story, saw the next phase of where my tale was headed and buried myself in fourteen hours of writing fury. However it wasn’t the trite simile of comparison that fuelled my next several hours, it was when I saw the coarse, gritty, gouged, base of gemstone.
In my hand, I was holding the most important piece of the stone – the base, the place from which it was formed.
Happy writing.
David Pyle
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