Surfacing Slowly- Compelling Blurb?

Just when i think I'm finished the book I wake up with a phenomenal idea for a twist at the ending. Should i take a week and rewrite everything on the chance that it will be as good as it sounded at 8am when i opened my eyes? I think so. I'll let the idea sit all day and see if it congeals. No risk no gain right?
Yesterday i entered a blog contest with my 200 word blurb on Surfacing Slowly in hopes of it getting chosen amongst 37 to be read by an agent. Wait. What? I forget who but somebody might chose it for something and i have to say that if my generous friend and critique partner Christine didn't post all these opportunities, i'd just be picking my nose over here. To inform us of the contest when she knows it dilutes her chances is the ultimate in generosity.
Just now I sent my blurb in to her future agent (cross fingers), Jill Marsal. She has a contest to choose one amongst 30 and if mine is in the first thirty blurbs, I get it looked at. Needless to say i've been polishing my blurb until the shine is blinding. But is the story compelling enough? You decide...

Would you read it?

Tina Alton’s husband, Hank, is presumed dead from a Hawaiian surfing accident but without a body, hope won't die. Gory hallucinations have the Maui scuba shop owner terrified of the ocean as her dive business perches on the brink of bankruptcy. When portentous life-like dreams blur the edges of reality, Tina fears sleepwalking at best and insanity at worst.
Jamey Dunn arrives from Afghanistan where he’s part of a secretive paranormal unit in which he visits prisoners’ dreams for military information. A near fatal jump has depleted his ability and he’s on Maui to recharge. An ex lover, Jamey feels partly responsible for Tina’s anguish but she won’t let him close enough to help. Both her domineering parents and an ill-intentioned friend, Noble, insist she leave Maui to recuperate in Seattle and when Tina’s resolve disintegrates Jamey kicks into action. He resurrects his dream jumping skills to enter Tina’s precognitive dreams and together they dive the perilous caves of Hawaii in search of Hank’s body. But what they uncover about Hank’s nasty past and Jamey’s real reason for leaving her ten years earlier has Tina questioning all she knew to be true.

Would you buy this book?????

Memoir Query

Dear Agent who must represent me:

I’m looking for representation for my memoir “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Girl”, completed at 90,000 words.

My first three novels were a warmup to the real story – me.

Raised in a small town by simple parents (not mentally challenged, just quiet people ) I grew up thinking the big city down the road would be as far as I’d go in life but once I started to move west, extraordinary things happened.

The last thirty five years have seen me through a career in entertainment (working with Jamey Foxx and Jay Leno),and a job as a Hawaiian scuba diving instructor (Steven Tyler loves to snorkel).  My brushes with celebrities started at the age of twenty when I fit Gene Hackman for hiking boots. In my life I’ve chatted up George Harrison and Alice Cooper at a party, Gary Marshall asked me to take my top off in an audition, I’ve danced with Donald O’Connor, eaten dinner with a hen-pecked Mickey Rooney, opened for Bob Hope in Waikiki (also filmed that night by Morley from 60 Minutes), stood up Burton Cummings on a date, got camera advice from Sylvester Stallone, interviewed Nando Parrado from ‘Alive’, auditioned for McGyver, got a yo yo lesson from the Smothers Brothers, stared in an international sunglasses infommercial and traded life advice with Maya Angelou backstage at the Maui Hyatt. I am the ‘under- celebrity’, the almost famous, the person who has enjoyed big fishness in a pond but when bigger fish arrived, stare wide- eyed at my fortune.

Aside from meeting celebrities, I’ve survived the sinking of a ship, once found a boa constrictor under my bed, won my husband in a Mexican dating contest, nursed him through cancer twice, fought off a heart attack in an underwater cavern, defied infertility, had my own (wheelchair- bound) stalker, faced a hammerhead shark on my honeymoon, was one of the first American independent adoptions out of Taiwan, did a flashmob dance at the Space Needle, performed CPR on a dead neighbor and hiked through the Nicaraguan jungle in search of Howler Monkeys. Some of the most incredible happenings I sought but many found me in this Forest Gumpish depiction of the life of a girl once too frightened to leave her small town. If this all seems amazingly suspicious I swear Liars Anonymous has never seen me.

           

Now I’m a soccer mom in suburban Seattle but the up side is that I’ve finally had time to write the book and am ready to kick off my tour on the Oprah Show before she goes off the air this year. We better hurry…

Changed Blog's Name - Staycationing at Bellevue Square

Now that i see i had 10 hits on my last blog (thanks Facebook) I decided to rename my blog. At first it was just for me to read but I'm coming out of the cave with squinty eyes now and feel ready to test the air with a tentative sniff.
Thus, Kimmy's Korner which I thought up in 2 seconds like it was channelled to me from some dead quilt- making grandma with her own PBS show. Like it or not, I'm now named something more rememberable. See, I know the word should be memorable but I like to mix it up, unlike quilt -making grandma's. REad on to dispel your notion of me as anything but a hot mamma.

Yesterday my darling 8 year old and I dressed alike in skinny jeans, high black boots, jean jackets, bling and took our fashionable selves to one of the trendiest malls in America - Bellevue Square- to strut the marbelled tile. We got many enviable looks from mothers who wished they'd dressed like their children that day but we just kept on going from store to store, fingering fabrics we liked, commenting on accessories we didn't and sipping our oh-so-trendy Jamba Juices with protein boosts, as we strolled hand in hand through the mall looking like me and mini me. Topped off with a cheap dinner at PF Changs, we sat window side for all to see and sucked chow mein noodles, nibbled on messy spare ribs and talked about life while wet napping our stained faces. Did we envy all the neighbors and friends who could afford to go to a fancy resort for the mid winter break this week as we spooned carmelly apple pie from tiny shot glasses into our mouthes? Not for a second because we were on our own little vacation at Bellevue Mall yesterday and that is a memory my daughter will never forget i assure you. Yes we've shopped before but never solely for the purpose of learning the art of browsing without buying anything. Ila was a champ about not asking to purchase anything and on the way home i explained to her the value of getting one's ideas from the expensive stores then going to Value Village and the sewing machine to make those ideas happen. Ah, good times, good times.

Flash Mobs

I'm going to organize a dancing Flash Mob. There are several reasons to do this and one of those is that i need to do something exciting soon. I'm ready. The other is exercise and the other is that ever since i saw one on the TV show Modern Family I've been asking myself why i don't do it. And there is no reason. I'm gonna get me a choreographer, choose a song and set some rehearsals for large groups of people to dance to that song. WE'll converge on a wide open, terribly busy public space in April, turn on that song and dance. Rather than just satisfy my own need to do something unusual i'm going to tie it in to Breast Cancer Awareness somehow and that way it'll have more purpose than Kimberley's need to perform. Not that i can dance, especially with my gimpy shoulder right now. I'll have to be well hidden from the video camera that will tape us for youtube or i might put people off flashmobbing for charity. There's a verb for the new Webster's Dictionary! So Flash Mob, here i come! Who is with me? Anyone else out there need to mix it up a bit and do something out of their comfort zone?

Finished My Book

How many of you have written a book? Two? Three? How many of you have written three books that no one wants to publish? I have. Well i just finished the third one which i truly believe is 'the one' and only sent out my queries a week ago but so far I've got two rejections from agents who don't even like the idea. Such is the life of a novelist. It's about as rewarding as auditionning for a leading lady role opposite Matt Damon or Brad Pitt or James Franco, t hese days.
What keeps us going? Oh ,oh , i know this because i hang out with a whole plethora of unpublished authors. It is the hope that one day someone will like our voice on the page and believe in us enough to go to bat at the publishing level for us. I happen to be close, i think. Depending on your definition of close. Do i deserve to be published. I don't know yet because i am about as subjective about my work as I am about my daughter;s beauty or my son's soccer skills. But i am closer than i was six years ago when I took pen to hand and said 'I'm gonna write my first novel and get it published'. Back then I was counting the money i'd get and assuming i'd be making mortgage payments by the year's end. If you write a book, it gets published, right? WRong - but the pay off is that you can call yourself a writer. And i do... Enjoy the post.  Kim