Looking back, this blog began in 2018. It's now 2023. This might be the most constant writing work I ever had.
Hi guys! Happy New Year! I'm still here, still working hard.
Today I enjoyed reading back through these pages and updating them. They document from when I started driving to January 2021, which means I didn't post here for a whole year... Sorry about that.
So Fox and I began the Stone Circle website together in April 2021. Now that we are officially up and running, I do sell most of the rocks I find from hunting. I keep a few for myself and pass the others on. Although Fox is no longer with us (he moved back to Germany), doag and I are still going strong. Kai is getting a little old for the hunts now, they exhaust him. Most of the time it's just me on a trip now.
TSC has sold Scottish rocks to Australians, to Indians, to almost every state of America, Italy, France, Spain, and more. There are Scottish rocks which I found in rivers or hill paths all over the planet. After Fox left I had a wobble about whether to continue or not, but the support of our long term clients made my mind up for me.
The Stone Circle: The Scottish Self-Collected Crystal Shop
What's new with TSC? We have an Instagram page where you can follow and watch all the new rocks that I find. I have a saw now, so i can cut up those nodules and look inside. I have a rock tumbler, so I slowly polish up the rocks I find, a small batch at a time. I still hand polish but less often. Time is a big factor. I have a few new locations and know what I am doing a bit better. Nevertheless, I do still get stuck. I would like to put myself through a geology course, again it's a matter of time.
I have the TSC website up and running now, and I do still sell rocks but not on Ebay, I am on Etsy nowadays. I ship Scottish crystals that I self-collect from all over the country, polish myself, and sell worldwide. TSC shop does ship internationally so don't be afraid to visit a .co.uk site if you are not British. We are on Facebook as well, so drop us a follow to stay tuned.
The Stone Circle has become popular on TikTok, I am eternally grateful for the 13.7k+ followers who learn about rocks with me. We are on YouTube too, and have gone viral once or twice on both platforms. Come and follow us and you might see videos of the rock you are buying as I find it.
Katriona E MacMillan, Freelance Writer
Why do I have no time? Because I am working full time as a freelance writer and have been since October 2019. I am moving into my fourth year. It absolutely has not been an easy ride, but I don't think I could go back to kitchen work now that I know how to make money out of nothing. Even the slow months with little cash are better than standing for 12 hours with no breaks 6 days a week. Especially on my painful feet.
What do I do all day? I receive requests from clients to write blog posts for their businesses. As well as blog posts, I write copy, which is the literature that comes with a business. Usually this is online material like home pages, about us stories, or even leaflets and infographics. Over the years I have covered thousands of topics. If you need to know what to do after a car accident to get maximum compensation, or what the best Lay-Z-Spa to buy is, I'm your girl.
But when the dinner bell chimes and the daytime work goes away, the writer in me really comes out. I have a fair number of short stories in anthologies all over the place, so I recently started publishing my own. So far we have "Bananas", about a botanist trying to grow plants on an isolated space station, and "The Portrait Artist", in which a Victorian corpse doll maker prepares a body for post-mortem photographs. Yes, both are horror. One Sci-Fi, one Historic. My website has even more free work on it if you want to take a look. I'm a modern writer, I know that a link is worth as much as a poem. It's a weird world.
I regularly write and release poetry. I am putting together a collection but I write in multiple categories. This means I have 40 poems across three and a half collections. I don't want each collection to be 10 pages long, so give me a little more time. Stay tuned for "Gen Z Could Save The World" and other delightful poems. You can watch some of these for yourself on Tiktok. I do fun stuff, mental health awareness and tips, I do beautiful places and a lot of environmental poetry.
Other work includes the 5/6 books of the Dark Science Series which are now published. When I started this blog in 2018 I was only 3 in. I've since reworked the first few books so that it all aligns. I am 270 pages into the final book in Dark Science: Oleander. It was only supposed to be a three book series but I love how it turned out. With character driven writing, you just need a loose idea of your plot points and then you let the characters push the story with how they would react. It ended up a longer road than I expected but a far richer story for it.
I'm going to miss them when they are gone.
What This Year Has in Store
I aim to continue finding new locations for Scottish crystals, minerals, rocks and fossils. The Stone Circle will keep going as long as I can. As for writing, I will still be picking up the pen when I am on my deathbed. I already have 10k words on the book which will follow Dark Science. This one is set in a research facility in the Arctic. It came to me in a dream (I have always wanted to say that).
I'm going to finish Dark Science either this year or early next year, and I will continue to release inspirational/mental health based/emo poetry on TikTok for all of you to enjoy. I hope you all come back for the occasional update. There is a blog on my personal website you can follow for more, or find me on Facebook or Insta.
They come for the rocks but they stay for the stories. I am A OK with that.
Katie.
