Tuesday, December 18, 2012

It's Proof Time!!!!


THE PROOF CAME!!!!!!!!!!!
I am sooooo excited. This means that very soon The Hidden Amethyst will be available for sale on Amazon! I am reading through the proof, and we found a few tiny mistakes. We just have to fix them, and then submit it and order our final copies.  You can see I've posted a picture of the cover. I hope you like it! Keep watching.....it won't be long now.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

One Step Closer!!!


I am so excited right now. We got the reviews, finished the cover, and ..............We ordered the proof!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m not quite sure how long it’ll take to get the proof, but amazingly, it already shipped! Once we get it and approve it, well, then it goes on Amazon!!! I’m hoping it’ll be around Christmas!  I'll keep you updated.

Friday, December 7, 2012

How The Hidden Amethyst came to be (The book).


When I found out I was going to get to publish a book, I was super-excited. At first I was planning a picture book, but as time went on, I decided I was better at novels. I selected a story and began to edit it.
But as I continued the story, I began realizing the story wasn’t good for a novel. It was only probably sixty pages, and I couldn’t get the plot right. So I sadly left the idea and started searching my story drafts for another idea.
Before long I had a list of a couple story ideas. I read my drafts I had and then reread them. After a little bit I decided on a unfinished story I had started about a few months before called Eliza and the White Ring. It was about a girl named Eliza who had to find a magic ring. Sound familiar? It’s the story I’m using now except I changed a lot, including names. I sometimes look back at that draft and I can hardly tell it’s the same story!
I started the editing by starting a new draft and rewriting the story all the way through. I did a lot of editing on that one but it wasn’t much different from the first draft. I look back on that one and you can’t tell at all it’s the same story, except for the fact there’s a magic ring in both! The story was too short when I finished it, so I started another draft and started rewriting and editing again. I changed many names in this one, but not all of them---I think I changed maybe five. I finished this new copy with about one hundred ninety-eight pages. And I liked it. The names were nice and the story was good, so I set the draft aside and waited.
However, about a month later, I looked back over the copy, and I thought: I can do a much better job than this!
So I started a fourth draft. I changed all the names and I worked for a month or two on repairing the plot and making it better. I added characters and deleted characters. Most of the rewriting was copying and pasting good paragraphs from the third copy but a lot was also total rewritings. It took me a few months but then finally, finally, I finished my final copy with two hundred ten pages. (Note: In the book, the font size is smaller, so there’s only around one hundred ninety pages. But that doesn’t mean the story got shorter.) 
Then my parents and I started editing it. We did a lot of editing and we found mistakes---parts that didn’t make sense or didn’t seem realistic, and we made sure everything flowed correctly. And then finally we finished it. To make sure everything sounded right, we read through it one more time. Then we started all the formatting and the getting all the details set with CreateSpace.
I can not believe how much has changed since my first draft! I can’t wait for you all to see it! 

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

My Favorite Books



The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson
The Sisters in Time series 
The Starcatchers Series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson 
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne Lafleur
Eight Keys by Suzanne Lafleur
Daphne’s Book by Mary Downing Hahn
Eleven Birthdays, Finally, Thirteen Gifts by Wendy Mass 
A Year Without Autumn by Liz Kessler
The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester
The Emily Windsnap Series by Liz Kessler
The Philippa Fisher Series by Liz Kessler
Nowhere Girl by A.J. Paquette
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls, Emmy and the Rats in the Belfry by Lynne Jonell
A Tale of Two Castles, Ella Enchanted, Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine
Tuesdays in the Castle, Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Boxcar Children Series by Gertrude Chandler Warner

What is The Hidden Amethyst (the book) about?


Amethyst Butternut is a ten-year-old girl who  mysteriously finds herself trapped on the orphan train, desperately trying to find a way out.  She soon discovers  it is just the beginning of her adventure as she and her new friends embark on a perilous quest. Facing danger and magic around every turn, Amethyst must remain strong as she fights evil and finds her true identity.

Photo Shoot Day!



Today we did a photo shoot for the cover. We got a few good friends of mine over and took a bunch of pictures. I’m not going to post any yet because one of them is my future cover! The pictures turned out great and I think we got a few good ones that will work well for the cover. My dad and I are going to play around with it for a bit to get just the perfect effects.

Hello!


Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is J.C. Buchanan, I’m twelve years old, and I’m about to publish a book called The Hidden Amethyst. It is my first book ever and we are going to send it to print in a few days. I am so excited to share with you the details and my love of writing!
As for what’s going on with my book right now, well, the story is finished. We’re waiting for a few reviews and we’re working on the cover. And then off to print it is! We’re publishing the book through a company called CreateSpace:  https://www.createspace.com.   When it comes out it’ll be available on Amazon and CreateSpace’s website. Hopefully it’ll be out by the new year but it may be later. 
I hope you find what you’re looking for on this blog. I’m sorry nothing else is on here yet but trust me there will be more stuff coming as soon as this week! 
Please feel free to post comments on what you like about my book, (when it’s out), or anything else. If you need to contact me you can email me at thehiddenamethyst@gmail.com . I can’t promise to get back to you right away but I will try to respond to everything myself. I’d love to hear from you!