People, Places, and Things

When asking my husband what I should blog about he responded, "People, Places, and Things." Okay, I can do that...

People:

I love Linkin Park's new song, Waiting for the End. What? Kim likes Linkin Park you say? Yes, it's true. I listen to Hybrid Theory when I'm angry. I want the new album and intend on looking for it at The Exchange, I never pay full price for music.

There was also a crackpot that came into work today looking for a discounted wedding dress for a Halloween costume. She was willing to spend over $200 for her costume. Since when has Halloween become an affair where we spend over $200 on a costume and especially something as lame as being an "ice queen." Just dress like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls and call it a costume already.

Places:

I have been hankering for a weekend away, which is problematic since I work weekends. At any rate, Christmas is in Vermont this year so I will get a change of scenery. However, I'm in the mood for one of the those random last minute trip deals where it's a big gamble as to what is least expensive. Will it be Atlanta, San Antonio, or Las Vegas? I can never contain my excitement when trying to book these trips.

Things:

Of late, I have loved my car. I've put some money in it and my mechanic and I are hopeful that I can get another three years out of it. This is exciting as long as I don't have to keep sinking money into it. Cars without payments are always a great thing and I like my car: it's one of the last Oldsmobile's ever made and has a Cadillac engine it. My husband doesn't like my car, but I think he's jealous because it's much cooler than his car and if racing, I would totally win with my engine. However, I would take a new SUV in a heart beat. I'm not going to be one of those mom's (I'm not pregnant, let's state that for the record) that drives a minivan. I want a SUV.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the randomness of my thoughts this evening and I would like to thank Mike for his topic suggestion today!

10K to go...

Almost 10,000 words left to write to reach my goal of 90K words for Andy's story. I'm very excited because I'm only half way through the story as far as editing and revisions go. I have to admit that at some points in time, I didn't think it was attainable; but I was silly to doubt myself. 10,000 words is like a drop in the bucket compared to what I have.

The editing is going well. I always get random ideas for minor story line changes at the weirdest times like walking into work or putting my shoes on in the morning. However, any idea is a good idea and it must be considered even if it does occur when I'm freakishly tired and just want to sleep. Lets just say that the comment option in word is my best friend. I write comments to myself all the time throughout my story and then sometimes forget what they really pertan too. That's when I say my first and middle name in anger towards me.

I'm still interested in writing my tales of my career search. I have new bitterness in my career hunt and its as if I'm scratching the scab off an old wound. The blood is the motivation to keep this project alive. Also, it is still equally exciting as I don't know how the story ends: a real life page turner unfolding each new day. Despite my disheartened spirit for a career, not job; a career, I still remain hopeful that it will all pan out for the best.

Less is more

I was driving the other day to a conference when I passed a highly decorated house for Halloween. Now I have never been one to fully get into Halloween as an adult and therefore don't really decorate my house for it (Christmas is my decorating holiday as my house looks excellent in twinkle lights), but I can't help but be extremely annoyed by the large blow up decorations. Even at Christmas, I don't the point. I think those things start at $90 and can go up to a few hundred dollars for just one blow up decoration that looks incredibly tacky. There is one house in my area that has purchased multiple of the same blow up decoration and has about ten of them in a ten by thirty part of their front yard as well as places three on top of their front porch roof!!!!

What ticks me off about this whole decorating thing is two major things: 1. If you can spend hundreds of dollars on gaudy blow up decorations, then you have way to much money because if I had that kind of cash, I would throw some extra money toward my mortgage payment. 2. Less is more! More is only more when it comes money and writing pinnacle scenes in stories. Details are what make them so important otherwise it would just be another line in a paragraph in a chapter.

So there ya have it...I feel less is more in life except for important storyline moments and money. Also, I hope you have your house tastefully decorated this season!

A random mash up of stories and thoughts...

I have nothing special to say today so I will go with another random blog entry...

Today my morning started out with me approaching a kindergartener who appeared to be on the brink of tears. I introduced myself to her and asked her what was wrong. Her response was this heart melting, "I miss my mom" with an exaggerated sigh. I consoled her and offered to walk her to class where I was overly enthused to see her desk in order to get her excited about her day. I stopped in to check on her at lunch and she was doing fine. I love school counseling and writing!

I had a dream the other night that I was dating Tom Selleck. (Wait, it gets better). I wasn't married and the next thing I knew I was escaping through an air conditioning duct from Tom's apartment with Patrick Dempsey. (I told you it would get better. But wait, there's more...). My mom and other friends/relatives were pressuring me to marry Patrick and I was like, "But he's just as controlling and possessive as Tom." However, they didn't seem to care. So I ran away and was going to transfer my retail job position to our Baltimore location and my friend from Baltimore was coming to save me. We decided to meet half way which for some reason worked out to be Greensburg, PA (definitely not half way) where I was hiding in a bush waiting for my friend to come.
Now, I'm a bit fearful to decipher this dream, but I think it all boils down to me wanting to date a celebrity while knowing it would never work out because I'm married and that I need a new job in my field. What is your take? Also, I really just want to see my friend in Baltimore.

I need a Halloween costume in the event that I'm invited to a party. I would love for my hubby and I to go as Peter and Lois Griffin from Family Guy because it would be a relatively easy costume to pull together. Also, I am not beyond sticking a sign on me that says "Nudist on Strike," so I can just wear street clothes because I always have to wear business casual/formal to work now. Any ideas? P.S. Some of my students think I should be a princess, witch, or even a ninja.

I hope you enjoyed this random compilation of thoughts!

Oh the open road, how I heart thee...

I was driving this evening and thinking about RoV and what I would do to change it. I thought about the scene where Mark and Anne have a large fight and maybe a few minor things that I would change and then I stopped to realize that this is how I would write the story now; not two years ago. I'm positive that two years from now that I will think differently on my writing now. This doesn't bother me because I think it just goes to show that I'm evolving as a writer.

Unfortunately, I haven't had much time for editing. I am not used to my seven day work week and getting all the house chores is still a challenge. I'm confident that I will persevere or that my cats will rise to the challenge of doing laundry. However, I have thought of some minor scenes that I want to add so maybe it's a good thing that I'm a little detached from my project.

In addition to my lack of editing, I have sadly not finished Water for Elephants and sorely regret not having it with me when I spent five hours in the emergency room with the my beloved the other night. His ankle is not broken, so no need to fret and no I did not see McDreamy, McSteamy, or any of the Grey's Anatonmy cast. And yes, I was looking for them.

Well, anyway, I must go have my car towed because some moron decided it would be okay to come to a dead stop on a road where we were going over thirty miles per hour. My brakes did stop the car in time and then I had drive home with my emergency brake on (good thing I fixed it when it broke in August). The moral of this story is don't be an idiot while driving and perhaps leave the recommended 3-4 car lengths between you and the idiot in front of you.

Life Mulligan's

Are you familar with the saying, "Hindsight is 20/20?"

I am. My job hunt and even my attempt to find some new places to do book readings has come up a little short. The commercials for trade school and even truck driving school sometimes look appealing. Sometimes I think about going back to school to be a teacher, but I lack the funds for that idea. Other times I think about getting my real estate license because I've done well in sales the past few years at my retail job. If I can sell dresses, I'm confident that I could sell houses.

One of my favorite novels to read is Jude Deveraux's, The Summerhouse, and it's about these three women who get to go back to a certain point in their life and choose a different path to see how it turns out and then ultimately they get to choose what life they want: the old or the new. If I had to go back to a point in time, I think it would be picking a college and a major. I love school counseling and I love Duquesne, but I'm thinking a larger Ohio school for meteorology could have been an interesting route to take. I'll never know of course and I like to think that if I had gone that other way, I would never met my husband or never written a novel: a tragedy on both accounts. After all, what other job do you get paid to be wrong all the time? They said today that it was going to be cloudy, but it was positively sunny for most of the day.

If you got life mulligan's, then perhaps that would be mine. I am a little obsessed with the Weather Channel on both the television and on-line. They have the pollen meter, which I get a kick out of in addition to seeing what is making my sinuses pound. So while I go check out what the temperature is going to be for tomorrow and pray that I get a full time counseling job, I hope you think about your life mulligan's because they are fun to ponder every so often.

My Inner Child

After work today I went to Half Price Books in order to find some children's books that would work for counseling children. So you don't think that I just read books to children all day long, it's a great supplemental activity for the younger kids who can't talk about their feelings, but can relate of a character. At any rate, I have a love of children's books! Before attempting to write RoV, I tried my hand at children's books. Truthfully, I find it difficult to write a meaningful character because I was trying too hard to come up with a fun character and I didn't know how to do that without adding so many details. I feel a lot of the children's books are made great because of the pictures.

Anyway, I love children's books! My childhood faves consist of Ten Loopy Caterpillars, Bip, Strega Nona, and Blueberries for Sal. I find Consider Love fun and cute as well. I found my inner child today and it was good fun! What are your favorite children's books?

Oh Friday, why don't you stay a while?

I'm sorry but it feels like a Saturday, so I really hoping to hang onto Friday. I'm not doing anything special tonight, but I just like the way today feels. For example, I finally got to utilize my master's degree and it was an extremely good weird that I didn't have to keep track of my time spent on tasks down to the very minute so I could log about it for school. Unlike some people, I feel that I was adequately prepared for the "real world" by my institution of higher learning, but in large part from my internship supervisors. Plus, I feel like it's all what you put into it and since I'm passionate about school counseling; I'm putting in my heart and soul.

Working in the school as an employee and not a student intern had a similar feeling as to when I finished RoV. I was like "uh, I really did learn something as an English minor." So I guess I'm just excited about using all my higher degrees of education because so many people don't, not that you can ever strip someone's education away from them.

As if I wasn't feeling accomplished enough today, I acted as superwoman around the house by grocery shopping and doing various cleaning tasks. Nothing pleases me more than cleanliness and organization. I'm weird (or awesome, you preference) like that.

It makes sense if you really think about it...

I believe I mentioned that I will finally be using my degree for a part-time school counseling position. I'm really excited for the opportunity even though it's just two days a week. I feel like I'm a step closer to finding a more permanent position whether it's in a school or community setting. What this boils down to is that I'm going to be working seven days a week for the next two months. I thought, "Well, crap, there goes all my time for everything else mainly writing." But then, I thought about it some more and I think it will be a good motivator for me. (This is the part where you really have to think about it in order for it to make sense)...

Last year, I did work 50-60 hour weeks, went to school, and still managed to do household chores. Somehow among all that I was able to finish editing my novel and start promoting it. I must confess that since I've been out of school and only having one job, I look at the laundry basket or even the dishwasher full of dishes and think, "Good grief, that looks like a highly daunting task." Working more will force me to manage my time better and thus, I will be more motivated to get everything done because I have so little time to do it in. Do you follow me? Does that make sense? Can anyone else relate to this madness?

October 4, 2010

It's October. October! I'm going to start Christmas shopping soon. I know I'm not the only person who is thinking about Christmas shopping and I would like to remind all of you that Rules of Vegas will make a wonderful Christmas gift! Ahh, nothing like a plug on your very own blog. No, but seriously, books always make good gifts. I have received a number of excellent books in my time. Allow me to list the one's I remember for you in no particular order:

1. The Bible from Grandma. What kind of Catholic woman would she have been if she didn't get the Bible for me for my First Holy Communion? To her credit, it was a children's version that had pictures and they did in fact suck me into reading it.

2. Dare to Desire from my college roommate. It is a highly inspirational book that I try to read each year to remind myself that if I want something, I can achieve it and that God has a plan for me.

3. Where the Sidewalk Ends from the fabulous people at Sir Pizza (See best pizza in Pittsburgh for details). Yes, the family got me this book when I overcame my picky eater ways to try their pizza. I have been hooked on the pizza ever since and I have to say, this book got me interested in poetry for quite a few years.

4. Various cookbooks from various people to which my husband thanks you. I am more of a baker than a cook. Besides, life's short, you are supposed to eat dessert first anyway.

My mind is drawing a blank on specific titles, but the point is that books make excellent gifts and Rules of Vegas is no exception. Don't wait until Black Friday to start thinking about Christmas shopping and presents. If you recall, Black Friday wasn't a very pleasant day for our heroine, Anne, in the story. All I'm saying is that a little preparation might be worth it in order to avoid your stepbrother making out with your first cousin.

Multi-tasking

Blogging and baking chocolate chip cookies all at the same time: if this isn't a part of the American dream, then I don't know what is! I have to say that the baking portion of my day is annoying my cat, Sadie, who hops up onto my lap for approximately 6-7 minutes while the batch of cookies bakes in the oven. And because I know you are curious: yes, I do taste-test a cookie from each batch. Any good baker does.

I am moving back to the beginning of Andy's story for another round of editing and then I'm going to put it out there for more opinions. If I push forward with publishing, I definitely want to find an agent. However, as previously mentioned, I have to find a new job. I am looking for people willing to write a testimonial about Rules of Vegas to place on my web-site. It can be anonymous if you wish. If you are willing to write something, I would be very grateful. Please send it to kimberlyzylinski@kimberlyzylinski.com.

It fully has sunk in that I almost have a completed second novel. How crazy is that? Even if it doesn't go anywhere, I can say that I have written two novels, which I think is a pretty cool accomplishment.

Editing

Oh the amount of editing I've been doing is rather exciting. I still am worried about coming up with enough details and maybe one more sub plot, but I will prevail! Of course, I only have time for editing when I'm super tired. Maybe I'll develop a night owl personality.

I have been reading things other than my own writing which is refreshing because I think it useful to see someone else's writing style. I think a good writer needs to recognize different techniques of writing and possibly integrate them into their own to develop an unique writing style and evolve as a writer/person. "What book has Kim been reading that made her think about this?" Water for Elephants. I'm only on chapter three, but I really needed a break from my own work despite having the motivation to continue forging forward with it.

Good news kids: I am back to semi-normal hours at my job. I say semi-normal because the liklihood of me doing twelve hours shifts has dramatically reduced, but may not completely disappear as I have just accepted a temporary part-time position in my field. I'm hopeful that it will open some career doors for me. It only took ten months for me to use my master's degree. Better late than never, I suppose.