Welcome to MSN Chat. Welcome to onstage. 

Question: Do you feel overexposed at all when you write a book?
Jewel Live: No, there's plenty I don't put in the book. (laugh) And I enjoy being honest. I feel less endangered the more honest I am.

Question: Jewel - did you have any help writing the book? Or are you just naturally gifted in this area as well as music?
Jewel Live : Oh naturatly brilliant. I wrote the book by myself and a lot of friends helped me by reading it. I had one friend that helped me a lot by typing it all up because I wrote it in longhand.

Question: everydayangel_0 Asks: I found the eskimo icecream story very funny!!! Is that the weirdest thing you have ever eaten? (Moderator: For those who don't know the eskimo ice cream story, can you tell us about it?)
Jewel Live : I think when you grow up in Alaska you grow up eating some weird things. Some gross things like cow tounge and heart. Like barbacued moose legs.

Jewel Live : It's kind of a long story, it might be easier for you to buy the book, but in short, when I was a young child, we toured eskamo villages performing and one village offered my ice cream that I excited agreed to, only to find out that it was frozen berries, snow, and seal oil. With sugar.

Question: How was it?
Question: In the book, you mention a song that you hated but the record company thought could be a popular sinle. What song was it?
Jewel Live : It's called "Tough Girl."
Jewel_Live : I don't think it's out anymore.

Question:Hi, Jewel, with your rise in stardom, have your inspirations changed with your change in lifestyle and have they affected your creatively in any way?
Jewel Live : No, I'd say the same things inspire me. The change I have noticed is how to deal with fame. The only time I got uncomfortable with my job was when I feared what inspired me went against what it takes to do my job. Like the more I began to feel my job was just about a popularity contest and running for home coming queen every year, the more I felt
Jewel Live : out of place because I've always loved song writing and being around people. I got disillusioned at some point until I realized it doesn't have to be a popularity contest.

Question: Do you adapt a different mode of dicipline when writing prose, poetry or music, how can you steer a poem to be a poem and not become a song, do you control this, or just let it free itself?
Jewel Live :They do tend to come very different. It's sort of like each different way of writing is like a different vehicle that takes you to the same place.
Jewel Live : I can't really turn a poem into a song and keep the integrity. Although they do sometimes swap like "Foolish Games" was a poem that I wrote when I was 16 and 2 years later became a song.

Question: jewel,,did you enjoy making your book as if you would enjoy making an album?
Jewel Live : I was really ready to make this book. I didn't want to make a record, I was glad to have a break from music. I like writing because it's quiet and my personality, like my humor, can come across in my writing. Also my thought process can come across, how I view the world. I really enjoyed that.

Question: Did you family express concern about them being portrayed in your book?
Jewel Live : No, my family didn't. None of it was a shock to them, they all read the book before it came out. I wasn't pulling any punches. I had their blessing.

Question: Thus far in your life, what would you cite as the most positive achievement, both personally and publicly?
Jewel Live : Professionally I'm very proud that I've been able to remain creative in a fairly uncreative business. And I'm really grateful and thankfull for the success I've had. And personally, there's a couple things... I'm really proud of my health, I've gotten a lot healthier with my kidneys. I'm able to tour more without worrying about getting sick.

Question: Jewel you are a very earthy open spaces kind of person...is it difficult to put yourself in a situation of big crowds and big city environments?
Jewel Live : At first it really was. When I first moved from Alaska it was like culture shock. When I visit New York, it was really hard for me, but I love it! As long as I can get away, I enjoy it. The city is definitely fun!

Question: Why did you title your book "Chasing Down the Dawn"?
Jewel Live : It was hard to find a title for this one. In that poem really summed up the whole conflict of the book which is missing Alaska, fame, and how do you reconcile. The last line of the poem is "I will return to you Alaska, but for now, I'm chasing down an endless dawn." That seemed to summorize the quest for truth and beauty that permeates the book.

Question: Jewel, I really enjoyed your performance in 'Ride With The Devil' -- do you have any plans to do more film work?
Jewel Live : I've been looking at scripts. It's hard to find really great well written scripts that haven't been offered to another great actress. I would like to continue in film.

Question: Hi Jewel. Do you mind doing press? You were great on The View. Were you upset by something on the Saturday morning show?
Jewel Live : I do enjoy press. But early in the morning I'm quite precise. By the time the Saturday Morning show came around I had been through a whole week of press and about an hour to eat a day. I was just disappointed that the guy didn't know anything about my book. I try and be very professional and I was just disappointed. I am more generous when I'm not
Jewel_Live : tired. (laugh) It was fun though!

Question: Were you worried about the entire public reading about your relationship with your father? How are you able to be so honest when you know thousands will read your thoughts?
Jewel Live : Well I was glad to put that in because I'm proud of what we've been able to do together with it. I'm proud of my dad's growth and my own. And I'd rather kids know that it does happen to whatever degree. I didn't bring it up to focus on abuse, but more to know that you can get over these things. I think that's important because I have friends that are stunted because of it. I want children to know that you can get through and over it and be comforted.

Question: I loved hearing your new songs on David Letterman etc.., does this mean you are writing new material for an album?? 
Jewel Live : I have been writing. I don't know what will end up on a record and what won't, but I've been enjoying writing.

Question: Jewel, do you have any future plans on writing any more books?
Jewel Live : I'd like to write a novella. I'm also interested in doing a children's book, but I'm not planning anything right now.

Question: what is the ultimate thing that keeps you going when times get tough?
Jewel Live : Fear of suicide. (laugh!) No, I don't want to kill myself. I just have to move forward. My mom keeps me going and life and the unknown keeps me going. Also my love of service keeps me out there when I would quit otherwise.

Question:What really cheers you up or thrills you completely?
Jewel Live : Phone calls from my boyfriend. Of course writing. Tons of things, I don't think I can begin to list them.

Question: How many horses do you own?
Jewel Live : I own 1 in Alaska named Clearwater and I have one in San Diego named Chance. And a cowboy named Gary McDaniels recently gave me a colt because he said that where he's from if you want to give something to someone that means something, you give them a horse. (laugh) And that one is in Texas.

Question: What is your favorite breed of horse?
Jewel Live : I'd have to say quarter-horse.

Question: Jewel, how did you learn to write? Have you ever taken any writing classes or have you learned through reading and trial and error?
Jewel Live : I think I've just learned through reading and over time. I always got good grades in writing in school. I was really bad in spelling and was sloppy and I hate rewrites. I had a teacher in 5th grade that wasn't a taskmaster, even the writing style was how to brainstorm with all these little rules. He let me not do it because he saw I lost creative
Jewel Live : interest of it, and I think that really effected my love of it. To me it's just a creation of story telling and I'm glad I didn't have teachers that didn't nit-pick me to death.

Question: Jewel, your eyes speak of an old soul, do you think you are?
Jewel Live : How very esotric. That's a hard question to answer. I have been comforted often by knowing that even in the moments I feel most alone, that there is a knowing in me that I can rely on. So if that's an old soul or not, I don't know.

Question: Jewel, What was your favorite bedtime story or song when you were a little girl?
Jewel Live : My record "Spirit" has a hidden track with my mom and I singing a lullabye "Little Bird" and it's one of my favorites.

Question: I am very interested in Alaska. What is it like to have half a year of light and then darkness? Does it affect you emotionally?
Jewel Live : It does effect you emotionally. Up there they have a thing called cabin fever. People definitely get stir crazy as well as very manic in the summer months.

Question: How did you like Interlochen?
Jewel Live : I enjoyed Interlochen. I learned a lot there, I found bording school hard. I haven't had any friends my own age my whole life and then I was suddenly living with a lot and it was hard. I think musically I grew a lot there.

Question: what does she feel is the most empowering thing of her home Alaska?
Jewel Live : A friend of mine calls nature "Altered God" and I think a lot can be learned from that. I think it gave me independence and famiilarity with common sense and a tremendous respect and awe in the beauty of the world.
Jewel Live : That is a very unaffected and unusual outlook on life especially as I travel.

Question: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHILDHOOD MEMORY? (And is it in the book?)
Jewel Live : I have a lot of them. A lot of them are in the book, I don't think I could pick one. I loved being in the mountains alone with my horse. I like singing in bar rooms and watching drunks nurse their beers. There's a lot of it I enjoyed.

Question: Do you have any funny quarks in your writing process? For instance, do you have to sit in a certain chair or in front of a certain painting for inspiration?
Jewel Live : Boy if I did, I'd never write! I'm never in the same spot! I'm very fortunate to be able to write anywhere at anytime. I love writing and it's not something I have to supplicate like the Greeks did with their Gods. A lot of writing was done at 4 in the morning after shows. It can happen anywhere.

Moderator: Jewel, we are going to close this chat with a final question from Jfan1 who says: You seem like a very romantic person who enjoys everything in her life. I would like to kno, what is your favorite time of day and why?
Jewel Live : I don't know if I have a favorite time of day. Of course morning and evenings are always lovely. I do have favorite moments in the day, it's nothing planned, just when the light settles in a room a certain way, or a feeling, it's many different things. I think it's those times that life romances and is poetry. Those little pieces.

Moderator: Jewel, thank you for joining us tonight on MSN Live and thank you for sharing yourself in "Chasing Down the Dawn."
Jewel Live : I enjoyed being able to talk with everyone!

Moderator: Tonight's MSN Live is sponsored by Pure Oxygen. Entertaining, informing and empowering women to do great things. Find out more at http://www.oxygen.com/pureoxygen/.

Moderator: Jewel has left the stage.

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