Second draft of the new novel-in-progress: done. New working title: The Source Emerald.
The rough draft weighed in at 67,515 words. Even after cutting some of the final chapter, the second draft finished at 70,294 words. A lot of those extra 2,779 words consisted of me saying, "Huh? What did I mean by that?" and then going in to make it clearer. The whole thing is better now.
I think.
And how does one celebrate the completion of a second draft?
Why, by starting the third draft, of course.
I leave you with a photo of a giant emerald.
This, the Bahia Emerald from Brazil, is believed to be the largest single shard ever found. It weighed about 752 pounds, and has been valued at about $400,000,000.
It was necessary to shrink the emerald in my book down to thirty-two pounds, but it was once much larger, and still resembles this one. And that, Mr. NSA guy, is why I've been researching gems so much lately.
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
A 750 lbs Emerald! Imagine you find that in the Amazon jungle, and then you cannot take it with you because its too heavy... :)
But size is not everything. At least when it comes to Emeralds. The color and the quality makes the value, really. In Brazil they find a lot of Emeralds, but only few are really top quality, that make the big money.
There are some jewels that are way more expensive anyway. Some make even diamonds look like pebbles. Then just 10 carat already cost millions - thats only 2 grams. Never mind 750 lbs... :)
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Yeah, I've learned a lot about gems in the last few months! That big emerald was worth a lot of money, but in the end I think most people would like something smaller, with higher quality. The big stones remind me more than anything of green Kryptonite from the various Superman-Girl shows and movies.
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For some people it's like Kryptonite, that's for sure. A while ago I watched a documentary about Emerald mining in Brasil, and it's pretty rough business. All sorts of crime are in it, environmental destruction, even murder. Rather similar to the illegal gold mining there. And it's also well organized, from the little miners all the way up to the official traders who sell internationally. And people who stick their noses in and publicly complain, live very dangerously.
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Yes, very much so--I think it's the same for a lot of gem mining around the world. I wouldn't want to do it! But at least I can say I know a lot more about gems in general than I did before I started writing the book.
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Well, that is another way of profiting from the writing, I guess. Even if you don't get rich, you learn about things you otherwise probably never thought much about. And that is always a good thing.
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Very true! Plus, maybe one day someone monitoring me from an NSA computer will buy one of my books.
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