When I finally settle on another online store, this reworked piece is probably going up for sale.
‘Enamel Flame Pendant’ is a 17.75″ tiger-eye and green aventurine necklace with an elaborately cast .925 sterling silver hook clasp, .925 Balinese sterling silver accent beads, and an original .925 sterling silver jointed pendant by yours truly, circa 1995. I just restrung it to clean up the design, and take advantage of some almost luminously-silky tiger-eye thrift store beads.
The pendant features two Arizona fire agate cabochons with green and gold fire, my hand-carved turquoise lotus flower terminal, and a glass enamel and silver flame worked in black, yellow, light blue, and turquoise.
The new necklace is finished with sterling silver crimp beads, crimp covers, and wire guards protecting the Soft Flex beading wire.
This piece serves as an object lesson in writing, as well as art: the enamel, silver, and gemstone pendant has been strung on two other necklaces since I first made it. As long as I keep a piece, I try to be brutally unsentimental about it. Every useful component is up for re-purposing in new pieces.
The same goes for my writing: my old pieces may not be completely salvageable, but parts of them can be components or springboards for new work.
Take THE PURIST. I’m still irked that I had to lose a perfectly lovely pre-Throng houseboat scene between Eridan and Sfassa, which had been my original opening scene before the massive revisions of last year. But if I wanted to open with the first Black Moment, the houseboat had to go.
But, because I have an interwoven current-and-flashback structure to these books, that scene *can* show up in the sequel.
Never delete your drafts!