First Place!

Hello, all! I'm still in a bit of shock over this announcement. Apparently, I won first place in CLASSeminar's blog contest this year!

Umm…enough said? Do I need to say anymore? First place seems descriptive enough. Anyway, here is my winning post for your enjoyment! (By the way, the prize was a scholarship to CLASSeminar's Writers' Contreat in November. Super excited about that! Here is a link to an explanation of CLASSeminars if you are interested, also).     CLASSeminars

A Different Door

“Sit down, brother. Would you like some tea?” the little girl holds a plastic tea cup towards an empty chair across from her, “Yes, sister, I want a cookie! But I have to go get the baby a bottle, first.” She gets up from the table and skips across the empty yard and up the front steps, into her house. After grabbing a play bottle from her bedroom, she stops and leans on the arm of the couch, kicking her legs in the air.

“Mama, I want some brothers and sisters.”

Her mother smiles and takes another towel from the basket of clothes she is folding. “Then you should pray for some.”

So the little girl did, every day, for what seemed to her like years. First it was one sister, no, a brother. Then it was two, no, four sisters, and five brothers. Now, that would be perfect. An even ten kids to share her wonderful parents with. How exciting! And now all there was to do was wait for her mother to announce that the first baby was coming . . .

That was me, ten years ago. There was no doubt in my seven-year-old mind the Jesus meant it when He said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” [Matthew 7:7] I was sure that, if I asked enough, God would give me what I asked for.

But I never got those four sisters and five brothers, and my mother has never had another baby. Though I knocked and knocked and knocked on that door, it never opened. Sometimes I wondered if what Jesus said was really true. When I look back, though, I am very glad that door stayed closed.

You see, when I ask God if we can go somewhere, I usually have a detailed map in my head of how we are going to get there. When I ask God for a gift, I generally have a “flawless” strategy for how He's going to give it to me. I always do my planning from the ground, and I am only ever thinking of one person . . . that's right, me! But God makes plans from the sky, where He can see everything, and He thinks about everyone involved.

Like I said, I never got my ten siblings in the way I imagined. Later I found out that it was because God saw something I didn't – three little kids roaming their neighborhood, digging through trash cans, starving not only for food, but for love. He saw three precious gems who needed safety, security, and a family. He saw two girls and a boy that I now call my siblings, my answers to prayer.

So, did Jesus really mean it when He said, “ . . . knock and the door will be opened to you.” ? I think He did, only sometimes, it isn't the door that I'm expecting. It's a door that is much, much better!

For Grins and Giggles

So I was searching through our boxes of over five-hundred books (for what seemed like the five-hundredth time) and happened upon this gem: a folder full of stories and papers I wrote in fourth grade! Apparently, I wrote more (and better) than I thought I did! Here is one piece, unedited or messed with by my now-experienced hand, that I thought you might enjoy.  :)

                                                         There's a Moose in the House!

                                                         One day when my family came back from the store,

                                                      We realized we forgot to shut the door!

Just when we thought everything was great,

I found a moose in my closet, wearing a skate!

"There's a moose in the house!" my brother told everybody.

"That's why my bed is muddy!"

Then dad burst in, "There's a moose in the shed!"

My sister screamed, "There's one under mom's bed!"

Then mom cried out, "Come here somebody, quick!"

"There's one in the bathtub, chewing a stick!"

And I stood amidst this,

But then came a moose, wanting a kiss!

After we shooed all the moose out of the yard,

                  The mailman came with a bright yellow card.

                                                      "I'm missing a moose!" the letter said,

                                                         "Will you help me find it, before it plays dead?"

I have to admit this idea wasn't original, but loosely based off of the card game "Moose in the House", which is another gem! (By the way, can you believe I rhymed? Like, good grief, what was I thinking? I never rhyme!)

Exclusive Preview!

Hi, everybody! Here is an exclusive excerpt from my latest novel, To Be Free. Enjoy!


…The next day, Nillah found herself trying to ignore the fact that her and Jack had left for the Dammam Regional Museum more than an hour ago – when Dad's GPS had said it would take about five minutes. The sun slanted in the sky and bounced off of the windows of the tall buildings as she wearily put one foot in front of the o
ther. She could almost hear beautiful, colorful Mumbai taunting her as she trudged through the sweltering, almost colorless streets.
“Um, Nillah?” Jack caught her elbow and stopped to look around. “I don't think this is the kind of area they would put a museum in.”
“What was your first clue?” Nillah rolled her eyes. It was hot and tired versus politeness right now, and as far as she was concerned, hot and tired won.
Jack ignored her comment, “I think we're officially lost.” He rummaged in his pockets for his phone. “Ugh. No service. How's yours?”
“You know, I think maybe if we went that way and turned left – ”
“You forgot it, didn't you.”
Nillah bit her lip and winced. “Well, think of it this way. By forgetting my phone, I just plunged us into a spectacular adventure! Just picture it: we'll see sights the average tourist never gets to discover! Forget the museum.”
“Nillah, stop goofing around. Dad is going to kill us. I mean, losing the guard was bad enough –”
“Hey! That was an accident!” She had gotten confused with the bus stops and had gotten off with Jack before the guard had a chance to stop them. Was that really so criminal?
Jack continued, “But getting lost when I – we – specifically promised we wouldn't . . .”
She held up her hands. “OK. So we're lost. Without the guard. We're going to get in huge trouble. I get it. But standing around and talking about how bad it is isn't going to help. Now, as I was saying, this way, and then right . . . wait, is that what I said?” Nillah put a hand up to her cheek.
Jack shook his head. “I think I better do the navigating.”

Just for My Father

When I sat down to write this post, I took one look at the blank page in front of me and thought, "I don't know if I have anything important to say just now. I suppose I'll wait a week or so." But as Dan Poynter said, "If you wait for inspiration to write, you're not a writer, you're a waiter." And I definitely do NOT want to be a waiter, so here goes…

Lately, I've been taking some time off after completing my last book, To Be Free. It has been relaxing, yes, but more than that, the absence of writing has reminded me of how much I am pulled to write. And not necessarily for my audience, either. If I'm honest, when I make the transition from writing to publishing, I am almost always thinking, "Who would want to read this, anyway?". 

More and more, I'm realizing the value of not thinking of my audience when I write, and just writing for myself and my Father. Like the little kid who gets a new pack of crayons from her dad. She draws for the fun of it, and to please the one who gave her the gift. Her natural-looking scribbles for him are better than a strained "Mona Lisa" made for the crowd, anyway. They're more unique, at least. 

I wonder how different life would be if we all stopped looking at each other, trying to please the crowd. It's funny how even when you're rock-solid in your belief that your identity doesn't come from the crowd, you still try to please them. I guess I didn't realize that even I do that until just now. But what would happen if the only person any of us tried to please was Him? What if His will was to only one we ever worried about? I think even my imagination can't come up with the miracles that could happen!

Novel #2!!!!!

Ok, my secret project can't be a secret any longer! As a bit of background, my goal for the end of high school is to have published at least three books. I am pleased to announce that I am officially two-thirds of the way there! Introducing To Be Free!
  My newest novel is a Young Adult fiction set mostly in Saudi Arabia. It features two characters, Nillah Clark and Leila Nejem. While Nillah is your average, well-off American teenager, Leila is a refugee stuck in poverty. When Leila's cousin gets kidnapped by a terrorist group, she discovers chilling secrets about her past and family. Nillah, who's vacation plane crash-lands in Saudia Arabia, bumps into Leila a few more times than she is comfortable with, which causes her to begin to wrestle with her normal American lifestyle … and God.
Sound like it was worth waiting for? I hope so! You can buy To Be Free from the link below (and, yes, that was a shameless advertising plug. Sorry, but I'm doing you a favor!).

It will be available on Amazon.com soon!


  To Be Free - Naomi Jewell

Back to Blogging!

Hello again! I'm so happy that summer is finally here! Now I actually have time to catch up on blog posts! Here is a "memoir" (ok, it's not really my experience) that I did for school earlier this year. Hope you like it!

Out of Tragedy

     It was just like any other day. As usual, mother had breakfast made before I got up. As usual, my little sister Rebecca had to drag me out of bed, still half-asleep. As usual, I kissed father, told him to get better soon, and headed out the door to work. It was just a normal day in the life of a normal girl in 1911. At the beginning, at least.

     I met my friends at the end of the street. We always walked to work together, just as we had walked to school together barely a year before. Those had been good days. But now, none of our families could afford to let us go to school any longer.

     Annette leaned close to me as we walked, whispering in my ear, “They say that Katherine Spencer got out of jail last night.”

     “Really?” Kathy had been one of the younger girls on my floor of the factory, just thirteen. The owners had had her arrested for stealing fabric. That had been a hot topic on lunch break for the last few days. Some of the girls said that no matter what, stealing was wrong. Others thought that since the company was giving us such low wages and long work hours, they owed it to us. I couldn't decide. All I was sure of was that the incident had not been good for me. In order to stop further thefts, my supervisors had begun locking all exits except the front doors; even those were barred so only one person at a time could go through, after being searched by a guard. It now took me thirty minutes to get home, instead of five.

     “Will Kathy get her job back?” I asked as we neared the factory.

     “Are you kidding?” Annette shrieked, “If the factory had its way, she would be kicked out of town completely! But I hear she wouldn't go back even if they begged her to,” she slowed her pace and leaned nearer to me, “I hear she's trying to start labor protests.”

     “We could use it.” I said. Annette shrugged and winked as we went into the factory.

     For the next several hours, the clamor of machines filled my ears. Click, clang, crash, bang. Click, clang, crash, bang.

     The steady rhythm almost lulled me to sleep. I kept my arms moving in their mechanical, efficient fashion. Finally, the lunch bell rang, and hoards of us girls streamed past the guard's posts and into the bright New York City sunshine. Or, rather, what sunshine was able to filter through the smog.            Some of the girls were talking about things they had read in the newspaper that day, but I ignored them and read the penny novel Annette had loaned to me. The day Congress would finally start talking about labor laws would be the day I read the newspapers. I didn't expect that to be anytime soon.

     The whistle blew. Reluctantly, I slipped into the line filing back into the factory. Past the guards. Up the elevators. Then, I hoped that, someday, my life would break out of this monotony. But looking back at what happened later, I wish I had been more content.

The newspapers said the cause of the fire was unknown. They supposed it must have been a spark from the machines. Everyone on my floor believed them, because they hadn't seen. But...I saw.

      Click, clang, crash, bang. Click, clang, crash, bang.

      Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The fabric moved through my hands as usual. The other girls were silent in concentration, as usual. A girl came in to empty the wastebaskets...as usual? The custodians never started until five o'clock; it was only four-thirty. I glanced away from the whirring needles just long enough to see her face.

      Katherine Spencer.

      Her eyes locked with mine. My machine got clogged and stopped, but I didn't care. My gaze traveled down from her angry eyes to the match in her hand. She wouldn't...would she? I searched Kathy's face once more for what seemed like hours, though it was only seconds.

     I stopped breathing when the match fell into the wastebasket.

     I had thought there would be some kind of explosion. In those first few seconds, I fully expected to suddenly die. But at first...nothing happened.

     The machines kept whirring.

     The fabric in my hands kept jerking.

     Time failed to stop.

     But the smoke began to rise out of the can. Katherine had disappeared into the elevator. Quickly, I scanned the room for a cup or bucket of water...but of course, there was none. I raised my hand to signal our supervisor.

     “What's the matter?” he grumbled.

     “The wastebasket...” I pointed, but as I did, the flames leapt from the can and clung to the wall.

     It was then that time froze.

     A wave of people swept up behind me and carried me into the elevator. I was pushed against the back wall; my ribs must have cracked, but I hardly noticed. Everything was a blur, except that constant, loyal sound.

     Click, clang, crash, bang. Click, clang, crash, bang.

     My stomach flew into my throat as the elevator soared downward. The wave of girls surged out as soon as we hit the bottom. I followed them in a daze. The sun still wormed its way through the clouds. Pedestrians strolled nonchalantly past. It seemed as if the past minute had been a dream.

I looked up. The flames were licking their way out the eighth floor windows and on to the factory's sign. Someone yelled across the street for a merchant to call the fire department.

     “Tell them the Triangle Shirt-Waist factory is on fire! Tell them to bring the ladders!”

     Some people on the top floor had climbed onto the roof and were jumping to the roof of the next door building. Wave after wave of panicked girls pushed their way out of the elevator. Colors and smoke swirled around me until I could no longer distinguish them. I dropped to my knees, my lungs burning.

     Sometime later, I woke up in my own bed, safe at last.

     It only took thirty minutes for the New York Fire Department to extinguish the fire that day. But nothing could extinguish the memory from my mind, or the minds of the families of the one-hundred forty-six girls who died. I never told anyone about what I saw, mostly because, for some reason, one of those deceased girls was Katherine Spencer.

     They say that good grows out of tragedy. I suppose it did in this case. At least, I finally ended up sitting down to read a newspaper, and the labor laws that Congress passed changed the world for immigrant families like mine. But I can't help but feel that, even in the struggle for our rights as workers, the cost of making a point may have been to high.

  Note to the Reader: While the Triangle Shirt-Waist Factory fire is a real historical event, all characters in this story, including Katherine Spencer, are fictitious. As far as historians can tell, the fire was accidental, though no one can know for sure. I changed it to be an arson merely for interest. (And wasn't it great?!?)  =)

More Than Meets the Eye - The History and Making of Pointe Shoes

Here is a research paper I recently did for school. Enjoy!


The Royal Ballet in Britain uses nearly eleven thousand pointe shoes in a year. Depending on the degree of difficulty of the choreography, a pair of pointe shoes could last a dancer anywhere from two to twelve hours. Most professional ballerinas need a new pair of shoes for every performance. Obviously, the pointe shoe is not made to last an eternity. But without it, ballet as we know it would not exist. The development and manufacturing process of these amazing shoes proves to be an interesting study.
The first ballet performances were done in the 1680's, and the ballerinas wore heeled shoes. But soon, these shoes proved to be impractical, as they did not allow the dancer to do a variety of jumps and turns. Before long, the heeled ballet shoe disappeared, giving way to a simple, flat slipper much like the training ballet shoes we see today.
In the 1830's, Marie Taglioni, an Italian dancer, began to revolutionize ballet. Audiences who came to watch her perform La Sylphide were shocked and awed at how weightless and airy Marie's dancing seemed to be; mainly because, for the first time in history, Marie was dancing on the tips of her toes! What was even more amazing was the fact that her shoes were the same flat slippers that all dancers wore. The one improvement was that to help the shoes hold their shape, Marie had darned the sides. For years, ballerinas all over the world copied this idea, mostly dancing in the same soft shoes. Gradually, dancers began to add hard strips of leather to the toes of their shoes to make it easier on their feet.
Until Anna Pavlova came along in the early 1900's , all pointe shoes were tapered to a sharp point at the toe, making it extremely difficult to balance on them. Along with several other modifications, Anna flattened the toes of her shoes to form a box shape, which made balancing much easier. It is likely that in photos of her, which still show a sharply pointed shoe, Anna edited
the picture so as not to give away her secret.
Once ballerinas found out and also began flattening the toes of their shoes, the evolution of the pointe

shoe seemed complete. It has changed very little since. 
 Today, pointe shoes are still made almost entirely by hand. The complicated and involved process begins with a seamstress cutting out and sewing together three different pieces of satin, along with a cotton lining.

These will become the inside and outside of the shoe. Once it is sewn together, the fabric is sent to the shoemaker, who puts it over a shoe form and makes sure it is the right size. If the fabric is even an eighth of an inch off of the measurements for the size, the shoe will give the dancer blisters. After
measuring, the shoemaker glues the fabric to a sole made of stiff cardboard, for strength, and
plastic, for flexibility.
Then the toe of the shoe is coated with a paste made of flour, water, and a rubber based resin. The shoemaker also lays a piece of resin-saturated cotton, along with two burlap pieces, over the toe to begin creating the toe box. These are then covered with another layer of cotton.
As Anna Pavlova demonstrated, pointe shoes work best when the toe is flattened. To do this, the shoemaker first hammers down the toe, then presses it against a flat piece of marble. The toe box is then measured with a square to make sure it is completely flat.
After drying for twenty-four hours, the layer of pink satin that the seamstress cut earlier is finally glued onto the outside of the shoe. A piece of foam filler is then attached with vinyl glue to the sole of the shoe, and then the shoe is again left to dry for twenty-four hours.
The next day, the shoemaker puts the pointe shoe over a two-hundred degree heater to reactivate the glue on the bottom of the shoe. After pressing a suede sole on and inserting a sock liner inside, the pointe shoe is finally ready to be sold!
Still, even after a dancer purchases the shoes, there is more work to do. She must sew on ribbons and elastic to keep the shoes on her feet, as well as bang them against the floor to soften them enough to dance on. Yet, after all the hard work that went into the making of these amazing shoes, they often last only for two rehearsals and a performance.
It has taken over three-hundred years for the pointe shoe to develop. Though it is very delicate, this shoe also presents amazing strength and support. And even though the process to make them is difficult and long, ballerinas and audiences all over the world heartily agree that it is worth it. 

Time to Edit!!!

     That wonderful moment when you sit back and exhale, beaming at a completed first draft of a manuscript, is what makes writing worth it. I figure it's like the moment when mountain climbers finally get to the summit. The only problem is that now you have to get back DOWN the mountain. In writing we call this process editing.
     Now, I am the kind of person who likes changes of pace and scenery. Doing something once is more than plenty for me. So once I get through a manuscript, rather than go back and work it again, I'd rather just move on to the next thing! But, alas, that's not how it works. Editing, here I come!
     Sometimes (ok, all the time) editing seems like a huge, scary Frankenstein of a task. So in case you ever create your own monster story and need help getting out of that predicament, here is a list of ways I've learned to break it into bite-sized chunks:

1. Go through one chapter at a time, one criteria at a time. Don't move on to chapter two until chapter one is perfect. This will give you smaller goals to achieve and make it feel more like you are getting somewhere.
2. Try to focus on things like eliminating to-be words, cutting down on "cheap" adverbs, and overall plot stuff separately, so you don't miss anything.
3. Have other people (friends, relatives, teachers, or anyone else you can think of) read your book or other piece of writing and give you critiques. They will notice things you can't!
4. At the end, read it once more to make sure the WHOLE story is cohesive.
5. If you are just really sick and tired of this project, give yourself a break for a day or two. Even mini-vacations work wonders!

So let's get to work! Though I have to say, I can't wait until I'm finally down my "mountain"! :-)

The Character is Always Right...Ugh!

When I first heard Kim Woodhouse say that good authors talk with their characters, I thought she was crazy. Characters aren't real people, right? Wrong!

Ok, so they're not really real. But my characters are alive in my imagination. Remember when you were a little kid and playing house? Maybe you were always mom, Joe was dad, Bob was the little son...but who was the nosy neighbor? Your imaginary friend Susie, of course! It's the same idea with book characters.

For the first eight years of my childhood, I was an only child. Whenever I got lonely, I would play with an army of made-up people. Even after I got siblings, I kept contact with my pretend friends. Those habits stayed with me, only now they are much more than friends.

In the teen novel I am working on right now, there are two main characters. One is Nillah Clark, an average American teenager. The other is Leila Nejem, a Palestinian refugee. After writing ten chapters, these two girls are almost as real to me as my real friends. So real, that they argue with me.

Nillah is actually pretty well behaved. She mostly does what I tell her to do. It's her personality that we disagree on. I want her to be a model Christian: respectful, obedient, close to God, and very selfless. But Nillah has decided she is actually the opposite! She keeps astounding me with how selfish and naughty she is. But, at least she follows my plot.

Leila, on the other hand, frustrates me to no end. Originally, she wasn't supposed to be a main character. She wasn't supposed to be a Christian. She wasn't supposed to be pretty. But, of course, after hours of stalling and arguing, I had to agree she was right. I also had to agree she was right when she decided to turn my plot upside down and not get kidnapped. So much for advance planning.

So what did I learn from days and weeks of fighting with my characters? The same thing many men advise each other about their wives. She is always right. Even when she's wrong, she's right. But what do I care about being wrong? As long as the story is good, I'm happy!

Guest Post!

 One of the most helpful people to have on your writing team is what I like to call a "writing buddy". A writing buddy is, essentially, someone who is close to your age and experience and who you can swap ideas, critiques, and pointers with. The extra help and encouragement you get from each other is extremely helpful!

So, without further ado, meet my writing buddy, Danielle. I met her at a Christian writer's conference and have been emailing back and forth ever since. Here is lovely sample of what she can do, both with words and a camera. Enjoy!

Childlike

When do children stop being children? When they become tweens? Teens? Adults? When do they stop being childish—or more importantly, child-like?

I’m not sure. I do know that when I was a child, I was fascinated by all kinds of things. Grasshoppers, sand castles, cacti, silly string, glass Gerber baby food jars. Trees—oh yes, the lovely leafy portals to the sky. Quartz rocks and ant lions. Almost anything—life itself?

Technically, legally, I’m an adult now. Somehow between child and adult, I neglected that fascination, funneling it into a few specific areas and forgetting to use it everywhere else. Why? I’m not sure. Efficiency, probably—why “waste” time marveling at the crisp feel of pencil lead skating across scrap paper when I had math to master? Chores, homework, TV shows, videogames: so much to do, so little time. I could obsess, perhaps, or grow through fads, but as I became bigger, my awe at overall existence… it shrank.

God kept it with me, though: He gave me a cheap camera. Well, I say He gave me; I mean, my parents did, but certainly God used it. Maybe it was His idea in the first place and my parents caught on later. Anyways—a cheap camera with macro and panorama settings. I learned that to use it well, I couldn’t just point and shoot. I had to see what I was looking at. I had to think. I had to take in what was around me. So I learned: I saw jetstreams in the sunsets, buildings in the city skylines, and closer still, the pattern of light and shadow, the texture in the page of a book or a brick wall or even a housecat. When I carried a camera, even if I didn’t plan to use it, I began to see photos, and with them: beauty. It was fascinating.

Still learning, I am. Learning to delight in these moments, in the detail and grand scale, the sights and sounds and sensations. Learning to look around with the alacrity of a tourist and the appreciation of an artist—even on grocery runs, even on school days. I’m learning to take Father God’s hand and, childlike, chortling with joy, tug Him over:

“Look, God!” I’ll point out the finely-flowered, full-leaved lilac bush nearby, bursting with color, grinning ear to ear. “Look what You made! It’s so pretty!”

Or I’ll gaze down an alley as we drive past, see lines and shapes and shadows and squeal into God’s ear about the rule of thirds, architecture, and intersecting planes.

I’ll smile into my coffee or the grains of sugar spilled on the faux-granite countertop and murmur about lighting, depth of field, texture details.

I’m learning that God hides things in the mundane—He works His creativity, his beauty, even glimpses of His glory into the people and places around us. He’s tucking little Easter eggs into the everyday, planting clues, setting out a scavenger hunt for us on our credit union runs and gas station refills, our school passing periods and employment hours. We may think ourselves wise and clever, but God shows us great and mysterious things when we are seeking Him, childlike.

Maybe the question shouldn’t be, “When do we stop being childlike?” Maybe we should ask, “How do we return to childlikeness?” Meekness and faith and simplicity and joy, and even fascination.

Commas!

Misplaced commas are one of my worst pet-peeves. They drive me crazy! For example, "Bob, drove ninety miles-per-hour around town." You actually don't need a comma at all in this sentence.

 Or "Sara, bright eyed sat down to eat the chocolate." Yikes! There needs to be a comma after "bright eyed" to make this sentence clear.

While there are many, many ways to misuse a comma that are not included in this video by TED Ed, I figured you would laugh a bunch and learn something too! Enjoy!