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

Birthday Lunch at the Spa

 

 

HOw lovely is it to sit around a long white table decked in attractive flower arrangements, sprinkled chocolates, Martha Stewart place settings with chargers (!)at a fancy-schmancy SPA (in the women only section, no less) along with ladies in robes, eating the cheese plate with apricots and Gorgonzola, then Chinese Chicken Salads, Mediterranean pizzas and telapia tacos while sipping diet cokes? It is super lovely. Uber lovely. And having hardly left the house since the Seattle January snain set in last week, i have to say it was worth the effort. Seeing the birthday gal surrounded by her posse of friends, balloons tied to her chair, gifts at her place setting, just back from a trip to New Orleans with hubby, happily in her element was worth the effort to shower, dress, primp and allow K to drive me all the way out the driveway to a completely different suburb to a health club all my Microsoft friends belong to for the pool and spa. Lovely, civilized, informative, entertaining are some of the words that come to mind. Just the smell of the steamy, eucalyptus oil-filled air at the Spa felt decadent. Today I am not getting back into my robe, i will not lie down for my January afternoon snooze and I am now more able to tackle last night's dinner dishes than i was before being treated by a queen at the lunch table. Thanks ladies for knowing that we need these moments in order to do the awesome work we do.

Stumbling Acceptance Speeches

I know i'm a week late on this one but when the trio known to the world as Edward, Bella and Jacob got up at the People's Choice Awards and giggled, shoulder punched and fiddled with their clothes (and each other's clothes) while accepting a coveted award for best movie of 2010, don't you think someone off camera could have looked at them sternly and told them to straighten up? They are after all in their twenties. Or at least the first two are and all three actors should know better than to slouch, guffaw and look genuinely embarassed to be seen on TV. They are movie actors of international proportions. Could they not have prepared a few lines about being grateful? According to a teasing Robert Pattinson, his co-workers had prepared speeches so where were they? Taylor Lautner was the only one of three who put full sentences together, looked in the camera and said a genuine thank you, giving a shout out to deserving people, between jokes about who got to go first. The other two looked like eight year olds caught on camera, shuffling their feet and daring each other to say something silly.
It was embarassing and i'll tell you, when i win my People's Choice Award for something, i will stand poised, encompass eloquence along with gratefullness and the People will remember that in the years to come when they vote for me again and again just because my acceptances speeches are not full of teenaged embarassment and snort laughs.

Missed Hasselbeck Meeting

Last night my gals met Mark (or is it Mike?) Hasselbeck- the quarterback (or is it quarterbeck?) for the SEattle Seahawks. They were supposedly out for dinner and ran into him and now have posted on Facebook their iphone pictures. I"m jealous not because i even watch football but because they did something out of the ordinary while i sat home watching America's Funniest Videos with my family. True, it's nice to have family time but last night was the latest in a long string of staying home with everyone to snuggle up in the big chair with a dog and a kid and watch TV. Going out for dinner with my friends to watch their excitement at meeting a celebrity would have been fun. It isn't that they didn't try to pry me from the house, knowing i haven't gotten out of my robe for days. They called at 4 to give me the option but i was just getting ready to take my pre-TV nap and i couldn' imagine leaving the house on such a cold day. Even when E told me we could talk about Maui and the possibility of selling something of mine to get me there. That sounded like a good plan but Maui talk could wait until the next day when i needed a reason to get out of my robe. I was already dressed and was already dreaming of getting into jammies for the night at 4. So everyone went out, met Hasselbeck and now i have nothing to write on facebook except how dreary Seattle is in January. If someone phones me today i think i'll pick up and agree to meet them at an invitingly warm, cozy place that harbors approachable celebrities.