Welcome to
today’s post. My special guest is novelist Fanchon Stylezz and she’s telling us
a bit about her writing and her novel, Heart
of Kings.
Bio:
Fanchon
Stylezz was born on February 17 in Far Rockaway, Queens. She and her mother
relocated several times before settling down in Long Island, New York. While
studying Business Ownership and Money Marketing in high school, Stylezz discovered
her true passion for writing. Throughout the years she toyed around with the
idea of writing movies, but life had other plans for her. As a single mother of
two teens and pregnant with her third child, she decided to take medical
classes at Hunter Business School. Fanchon graduated two weeks ahead of her
class with a 3.9 GPA, and shortly afterwards gave birth to a beautiful baby
girl. What should have been a normal recovery changed Stylezz life forever. Two
weeks after giving birth she suffered a massive heart attack and was diagnosed
with Coronary Artery Disease and Congestive Heart Failure. An Implantable
Cardioverter Defibrillator was installed in her chest just to keep her alive.
Fanchon Stylezz is a survivor and an advocate for Heart Disease treatment and
research. She remains strong-willed and outspoken. Having plenty of free time
on her hands, she dug back into her bag of many talents and started writing
again.
Welcome Fanchon. Please tell us about
your current release.
I released Heart of Kings April 2014. It was the
biggest and hardest thing for me to do, reason being I had a stroke in the
process of trying to meet my deadline. The doctors told my family that the
likelihood of me walking again was very slim to none. I was very determined to
get my health back to normal because I had a ton of people waiting for the
release of my book.
What inspired you to write this book?
Dealing with a lot of unnecessary drama in my life is what
inspired me to write Heart of Kings,
I would continuously make the same mistakes. I didn’t have the best
relationships either so I decided to write about it. Heart of Kings is about a young girl name Taliyah Russo who gets
caught up in a very bad crisis when she makes the wrong decisions after her
family’s dark secrets come to light.
Excerpt
from Heart of Kings:
I’m
not gonna water down or sugarcoat shit for you. My life, as far as I can
remember, has always been fucked up. From the day I was born, I’ve been through
so much unnecessary shit that at one point I thought about ending it all. For
some reason, God didn’t allow that to happen. He wasn’t there to protect me
when I needed Him before, so what gave Him the right to intervene now? Some of
you may be able to relate to my struggle; some of you may not. Whatever you
decide, this is my story and welcome to my world.
My
name is Taliyah Russo and I’m a junior in high school. In my neighborhood,
girls’ holding onto their virginity is very rare but it’s a status that I am
able to maintain. Talking about sex nauseates me. Thank God health class is my
last period. At the end of school the hallways are always overcrowded. Student
bodies can’t wait to break out of this place called kid jail. Me, on the other
hand, I kind of enjoy it. School gives me the freedom to flex my intelligence.
I pretty much keep to myself, with my head buried in a book.
My
school’s population predominantly consists of African Americans and Hispanics,
with a sprinkle of Caucasians. I’m one of a rare breed. I’m a combination of Irish,
African American and Italian--this is what separates me from my classmates. My
dark brown eyes blend perfectly with my almond-tan complexion. I know nothing
about hair weaves because my hair flows to the lower part of my back, jet-black
and thick enough to pass for Nigerian. On my sixteenth birthday my body matured
to the physique of a grown woman. I’m very curvaceous: My breasts are a nice,
full, perky size C cup and my ass can be seen poking through anything I wear.
Being mixed definitely has its perks. I’m proud of what God gave me; most women
have plastic surgery to look as good as I do.
There
are a few guys that notice the development of my body and they try to hook up
with me, but none of them intrigue me enough to give up my goodies. Females
hate me because my mixed ethnicity creates something that they wish they could
be. Dealing with major trust issues, I have a hard time making friends. Somehow
one girl and I ended up befriending each other: Ava a.k.a. Blabbermouth. My
spicy little Latino friend, nothing like Jennifer Lopez, Ava is more like Rosie
Perez. Her skin is pale and she wears tons of makeup.
The
frame of Ava’s body is so perfect she could get away with wearing practically
anything. Loving the attention guys give her, she sleeps with anyone who
compliments her. I stopped counting after the seventh or eighth guy. We often
speak about her crazy sexcapades and how guys treat her like crap after
sleeping with her. I love Ava and all, but I’ll never fully understand why she
continuously keeps hurting herself.
Every
day after school Ava waits for me by my locker, ready to fill my ears with the
latest gossip and rumors. I find her stories very entertaining but there are
times when I really don’t care for hearing about other people and their drama.
I have my own share of problems to deal with. At the age of nine I became a
daydreamer. My mind would drift off, back to good stories my mom shared with me
from time to time. There weren’t many, but I would use them to bury my deepest,
darkest secret that I hold inside.
On
this particular day, walking home from school, I watch the younger kids get off
their school bus and run into their parents’ arms. Seeing smiles on their
faces, I reminisce back to the story my mom told me of the day I was born.
My
parents have a great marriage. I’m my father’s first child but not my mother’s.
I have a brother that’s three years older than me. My mom said that a man
always wants his first born to be a boy, but not my pops. He wanted a beautiful
girl so he could spoil her and turn his baby girl into a little princess. When
the doctor pulled my seven-pound, bigheaded, slimy, blood-covered body out of
my mother’s vagina and said, “It’s a girl,” my pops was ecstatic and
overwhelmed with joy.
“I
want to name her,” he said.
My
mother couldn’t help but chuckle. “What name do you have in mind?”
“Fiona.”
With
a furrowed brow she lifted her head. “No Antonio, that name sounds horrible.”
“Then
what should we name our beautiful baby girl?” he asked, squinting his eyes.
“Taliyah,”
she answered, turning her head to look at the doctor, who had just finished
cleaning me up.
The
doctor stood in front of both my parents holding me wrapped tightly in a warm
blanket. “Who wants to hold her first?”
“I
do,” my father replied, extending his welcoming arms. Looking down at me, his
eyes held a certain glow. Leaning in to kiss my forehead he said, “She has
gorgeous eyes and she’s beautiful, just like her mother. Our little angel
Taliyah.”
What exciting story are you working on
next?
Right now I’m currently working on the sequel for Heart of Kings. Also I am working with a
new author, helping her write her first novel. I have my hands in a little of
everything building my empire one brick at a time.
When did you first consider yourself a
writer?
From the
time I picked up a pen I became a writer but I didn’t realize my full potential
until I published my first book.
Do you write full-time? If so, what's
your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find
time to write?
I would
love to be able to write full time, I write as often as possible. I take mini
vacations away from my everyday life to get most of my writing done. When I am
not writing I am helping other people with their projects or brushing up on my
editing skills.
What would you say is your interesting
writing quirk?
I love
watching movies and listening to different music when I write, it helps me get
through my writers block. Also sometimes I like to act out certain things that
I would like to see my characters do.
As a child, what did you want to be
when you grew up?
I have always had a passion for writing. What I really
wanted to do was write movies. Over the years I found myself writing a bunch of
short stories. It wasn’t until I met Damon Diddit, an independent television
and film producer and director who read my work and told me I should take one
of my shorts and turn it into a novel.
Anything additional you want to share
with the readers?
As a survivor and an advocate for Heart Disease treatment
and research I can say: NEVER GIVE UP! When you read Heart of Kings you will see why it is so important to never give up
no matter what problems you are faced with in life. My motto is to take The
Good, The Bad and The Ugly and make it work!
Social media links:
Thank you, Fanchon! Happy writing!
No comments:
Post a Comment