What I Learned From Rhinestones About Writerly Sparkle
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Welcome to What I Learned From… “It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” — Dolly Parton What I Learned From …The world got a little less sparkly this week. Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25th, and while there are a myriad of accomplishments and loving generosity to celebrate from her time here with us, it feels impossible to talk about Dolly without talking about the sparkle as well. Rhinestones, sequins, sparkly long red nails, brightly colored acoustic guitars, and blonde hair so peroxided it practically glowed as the spotlights hit it on-stage. She spent a lifetime modeling her look after the woman she later admitted was “the town tramp”, but little Dolly thought she was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. When she finally had the money and freedom to decide what she wanted Dolly PartonTM to look like, her brain went back to the woman from her town and she said: THAT! We have this assumption about rhinestones, paste, and costume jewelry. It’s fake and cheap, trashy and flashy. Rhinestones are what you wear when you want to look expensive without actually being expensive. But are they? The history of rhinestones is way more complicated than that. We’ve been using fakes as jewelry (a gemstone is merely a crystal that someone decided to put a pretty price on) and to adorn fashion and housewares for millennia—whether it was the glass casting of Ancient Mesopotamia, the eyebeads of Ancient Eastern Asia, or the Hellenistic paste jewelry of Ancient Greece and Rome. But by the 13th century, a specific type of fake gem called Czechoslovakian or Bohemian glass was some of the most sought-after artisanry in Europe, as their work was influenced by Venetian techniques, but they improved on the methods. These practices of blowing glass with colored pigments dyeing the molten compound continued through the Renaissance and Elizabethan eras. Then, they found a natural sparkle that wasn’t necessarily a highly-valued mineral. Well, it wasn’t highly valued, yet. In the Rhine Valley, along the shores of the Rhine River in Germany and the Alps, craftsmen found quartz crystals that could reflect light across three different dimensions when cut and polished. They named the crystals rhinestones. Over the course of barely a century, they just about mined the area barren…no more sparkle to be found on those shores. Suddenly, the scarcity of rhinestones elevated their value. Yep, at one time, rhinestones were actually quite expensive. Until people began playing with glass again, trying to replicate those impossibly brilliant crystals. First, in the late 18th century Georg Friedrich Strass of Alsace, France figured out that he could adhere metallic backing to small pieces of glass that were mixed with other minerals to recreate the reflection and refraction that gave rhinestone crystals their effulgence. The key was lead. Lots and lots of lead. These creations were actually called leaded crystal. But the biggest breakthrough came in the late 19th century, back in the Bohemian craft-landscape, where a family named the Swarovskis were experimenting with their crystal and gem cutting business. First, Daniel Swarovski revolutionized the industry when he created a machine that could cut the tiny pieces of glass after visiting the International Electricity Exhibition in Vienna. This one action shifted the now highly sought-after manufactured rhinestone industry into mass production. Then, decades later, he began to adjust the formula he used in glass production, updating the practices of the Czech glass generation 500+ years before. To this day, the Swarovskis keep their machine operations and crystal formula a family secret. As the world raged in-and-out of wars, alongside economic downturns and fiscal depressions, the use of costume jewelry and glass embellishments rose. You might not be able to afford high fashion or crystal chandeliers, but you could get a little piece of paste. So by the time Marilyn Monroe graced movie screens in that bubble-gum pink gown and opera gloves, dripping in rhinestones but singing that ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’, the world was on board with the substitution. Diamonds still had value. The only thing that shifts a crystal’s classification to gemstone is the valuation that people put on it based on characteristics like beauty, durability, rarity, and desirability. Back when there was a finite amount of true Rhine rock crystals to be had, they were considered gemstones themselves. Because the care taken to make something sparkle is itself evidence of the craft. We’ve dismissed sparkle and rhinestones as superficial because we didn’t pay attention to what it takes to produce them. But Dolly knew the truth. She knew exactly how much work goes into all that “cheapness.” It was something she joked about constantly. The wigs and nails and makeup and rhinestones weren’t flashy distractions to call attention away from her music…they were the embellishments and adornment for how she chose to show up on stage. She showed up and wrote, every single day. She was an astonishingly successful songwriter; a diamond, showing up in a world of rhinestones, wearing rhinestones. I get it. As committed writers, we can get weird about the sparkle. We want the work to be taken seriously, which is fair. I take writing incredibly seriously. I think the words matter, and the order we put them in matters, and that spending forty-five minutes fucking around with a sentence because you know it isn't quite right yet is a perfectly reasonable way to spend forty-five minutes of my finite human life. Which is kind of absurd when you think about everything that went into those original rhinestones. The whole fucking point of the cutting and polishing and setting was to make the light hit differently. We can add the rhinestones to our Very Serious and Valuable Writing. We can yank you in with curiosity, make ourselves laugh with a stupid aside, reach for the gorgeous word when the ordinary one would technically suffice, obsess over a callback nobody but us would consciously notice, or indulge in some astonishing alliteration because sometimes the words deserve to sound as good as the idea felt in our heads. If we’ve truly put in the work, we aren’t cheapening it by going back and making the presentation a little louder so people will pay attention. So put on the disco-ball jumpsuit when the occasion calls for it! Take the work seriously enough to cut it, polish it, set it, and then make damn sure you've put it somewhere the light will hit. It’s What Dolly Would Do. Freshly Forged …What's new, what's coming, and how to be part of it.
The Forge community and vault will open Tuesday, September 1st. (Have you checked out the new Inkwell Forge yet?) Worth Reading …The pieces that made me pause.
Notes from the Masters …Craft advice that holds up, straight from the ones who lived it. “I never stopped writing, even when they stopped playing me on the radio. I write something every day, and I take myself more seriously as a songwriter than anything else…when I hurt, I hurt all over and I’ve been through some major sad things in my life. But I also have that other cheerful side and I try to show my best. This is my image. I’m a very positive person. In fact, I’ve often said that you have to work at being happy, just like you have to work at being miserable. And when I’m working on those sad songs, I’m working at being miserable.” ― Dolly Parton, Legendary Songwriter Prompted: Your Move …A spark from this week’s essay. Use it to write your own. Find a piece of writing you know is good, but never quite sparkled for the world to see. Add some rhinestones. Punch up the title and add an aside that makes you snort-laugh. Polish the sentences until they reflect every angle. Get crazy and have fun. You don’t even have to republish it (though kudos if you let the light hit it one more day!) Glossary of The Forgotten …Because life’s too chaotic for bland words. Effulgence [ih-FUHL-jents] (n.) — A radiant splendor that’s exceptionally bright. From the Late Latin effulgentia: ex- ("out") and fulgere ("to shine".) It possibly pulls from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel- (“to shine, flash, burn”) that’s used in words like blaze, blush, and flame. This isn’t your everyday glimmer and sparkle, it’s a shine that comes from within and bursts out. Sorta synonyms: radiance, dazzle, brilliance Use it for: The catch of sunshine on a hanging jewel, a smile that starts from the ends of your toes, Dolly Parton on stage Try This Thing …No promises. Just a potentially brilliant shortcut or two. Vomit Draft: Struggle with editing while you write? This writing tool lets you activate “Vomit Mode” for a set amount of time, and every time you hit ‘Enter’ the prior writing is locked until your time is up. It’s all about writing forward, not looking back. Think software writer’s deck. The Final Chuckle …Serious writing deserves unserious endings. Damn, bookstore. You didn’t have to go so hard at our delicate writing egos. ‘Til next time ~ Elisa |