I’m an Author Who Likes Rocks.

Hello, I’m Katriona, and I have a rock problem.

It's not an obsession if it is a collection...right? (Not our image, credit unknown)

I’m not really sure how I got into the rock business. I am a writer by trade who’s neurodivergent special interest is geology. Nevertheless, writing for the Stone Circle has changed my life and I wouldn’t change it even if I could.

So let’s get into it. If I don’t celebrate my own achievements, then who (except my mother) will?

I’m not a Lover, I’m a Writer.

I’d like to begin my testimony by admitting that I started writing as a child, then as a moody teenager. I wrote poems. I learned early that if I wrote down what I felt, the paper wouldn't judge me, shout at me, or cut me if I didn’t let it.

I think with many forms of artistry or creativity, you either are a thing or you are not a thing. You can practice your craft every single day and still not be a natural. You can train yourself into anything if you do a bit each day, but you can’t train yourself to be passionate about your work.

It is that passion – the writing at six am because you have just finished your seventh cup of coffee and haven’t slept yet. It is having no idea of how the story is going to end and staying up because you NEED to find out before you can sleep – that’s not easy to fake.

And if you think you are faking it? If you worry that you are faking that passion but are unable to stop yourself doing the thing? Then that is something that you are inside your soul, even if nobody ever pays you for it. Even if nobody else knows you do it. It is a part of who you are. It will shape what you are put on this earth to do.

So yes. I am a writer. I have never not been. I have never tried to not be.

What’s that phrase about fish climbing trees?

Then I was a Novelist

I started writing my first novel around 2006. It started as a short character background I was writing for a game I played and I just never finished it. I am still writing it to this day. You can catch the Dark Science series here if you like my work. It is the story of how magic left our world and the fool that caused it.

[Sidenote to add that I just edited the entire series (2026) and added copyright sections which threaten things like endlessly stubbed toes should you feed the books into an AI engine.]

This led to me losing everything I had ever written in a computer update. It was pre-saving-things-to-drive days and I had been typing out handwritten notes for about six months. A temporary folder created during a PC update vanished the whole lot.

Getting back to what I mentioned earlier about being something in your soul… I was on the fourth book of the Dark Science series when I lost everything I had ever written. I was sending Edelweiss out to literary agents to try to find a publisher. I tell this story often because I went through real grief. I felt like someone had died.

Faced with that depression I had a choice. I could give up and stop writing, or I could write it all again. There really didn’t see to be a choice. I think I will only stop writing when I die.

In 2016 I finally released Edelweiss as a self-published book. I haven’t looked back. Then again, I am also poor, so maybe don’t use me as a good life template.

The cover image we chose for "Edelweiss", Credit to Craig Anderson Photography.

AI Took My Job

I was a chef and a kitchen porter for years and years while I was writing the books. I took a side hustle writing in the gig economy for a man who made far too much money at my expense. I moved on from there to start a successful copywriting business. Can you tell what happened next?

People started using AI to write their websites for them and that was my special skill. Soon after, they started getting AI to write their blogs.

I had two separate occasions when clients asked if I had used AI to write the articles. I was affronted. I pointed out that AI only knew how to write said articles because people like me had written thousands of them and some beggar had fed it all into an AI model. Using AI as a copywriter was like training the thing that was about to replace you.

Clearly not our image but #IYKYK

And now it has come for the artists…

TSC started as a side job because I had become obsessive about hunting down rocks. I had a kitchen full of quartz that I needed to shift so I could go and collect more.

AI is going to replace the artists, the musicians, the actors – and then we are going to replace the mundane jobs. And the natural progression is automation and robotics. We content writers have been warning the internet since 2018.

Now I am A Blogging, Rockhunting Author.

Because why not play to your strengths? I trained at the University of the West of Scotland in scriptwriting. I have a TEFL certificate. I am Reiki attuned to level 1. I love dogs. I have been known to dabble in tarot. I do climb the odd hill, fall in the occasional burn, and fall off a rock once in a while.

But always, always, always – I am an author underneath.

Read Short Stories, Poetry, and Other Work by Katriona MacMillan Here.

A piece of Cockscomb formation Barite I found recently because it wouldn't be a TSC blog post without a rock in it.