Writing novels is like hunting for gems.
Several years ago, my mother and I went gem hunting in North Carolina - two
years in a row. The first year, we went to Hiddenite, one of those
if-you-blink-you-miss-it towns, to sluice and pan for a variety of gems
and to dig for emeralds. The mine was located out in the boonies, even
more remote than the town itself. As I drove down the bumpy dirt road to
get to the office, I passed chickens, a couple of stray dogs and a
rooster.
When
I finally spotted the long, covered sluice line surrounded by stacks of
buckets filled with unprocessed, virgin ore, I was excited about what
we might find. We sat at the sluice line for hours, sifting through the
dirt and, not having any luck, we decided we would try our hand at digging
for emeralds. It was an incredibly hot day in August; sweat poured off
of us as we trudged up hills, carrying heavy shovels and buckets. Again,
no luck. We ended up sitting in the creek, panning for gems, letting
the cool water wash over us. We didn’t find any “quality” gems there
either but we learned a lot on that trip and had so much fun.
Our
next trip, the following May, was to Franklin, which is advertised as
the “Gem Capital of the World.” I’d done my homework and I was
determined that, this time, we would find what we were looking for. We
went to several different mines in search of star sapphires or, as the locals refer to them, "North Carolina rubies." But, after
three days, we still hadn’t found any of the precious gems and we were
beginning to get discouraged.
Our
last day there, it rained on and off and was damp and chilly. We sat at
the sluice line, shivering, with our hands submerged in the cold,
running water, rinsing off and inspecting hundreds of rocks. By the end
of the day, we had each found some stones, which we thought were
promising, but we weren’t certain they’d amount to anything. So, on
our way out of town the next morning, we stopped at a local gemologist’s
shop. Our suspicions were confirmed; we’d each found stones that we
would later have cut and polished to produce beautiful, star sapphire
rings!
Like
gem hunters, we writers often have to sort through a lot of ideas,
discarding most of them, before finding one that is worth keeping and
developing into a novel but, as we write our story and, especially, when
we finish it, we know that it was well worth it. And then, we do it
again!
