I have been busy lately polishing rocks and working on my novel. The book is coming along nicely. I added a few more chapters, and the total word count was in the "short story/novella" range. But I had more to add, so I am still revising and editing. Overall, the story is completed, so I am now just polishing words.
The latest batch of stones got pulled from the rock tumblers. I started a batch of softer stones, so instead of running them in the first stage for a week, I took them out after three days. The next step after shaping (knocking off sharp edges) is smoothing. The abrasive grits I use are aggressive and designed for hard stones like quartzes and jaspers. So I will run them only for 3 days in Stage 2 and check them again. I can run them longer in the later stages of fine smoothing and polishing because those grits do not remove much from the surfaces.
Across the top are Blue Apatite and Green Apatite. On the lower-left is Labradorite. The brown one on the right is Miriam Stone, which is not a stone. It is fossilized swamp mud, so very soft, but it looks so cool. The others along the right edge are Sabalgarh Marble, sometimes called Fruit Jasper, but they are not jasper. Jaspers are a hard stone, whereas marbles are very soft, which is why they are used in carved sculptures.
Sometimes when I am searching through my photos, I come across things I have saved. I have always found this one to be motivational.
