Angelia Vernon Menchan

Angelia Vernon Menchan is an author, publisher and public speaker who owns two publishing companies, MAMM Productions and Honorable Menchan Media. Mrs. Menchan is also a Budget Officer and former Job Corps Counselor. To date she has published twenty-three books of her own work, both fiction and non-fiction and more than eighty ebook novellas on amazon.com. You can access her bibliography on www.amazon.com search words: Angelia Vernon Menchan




Contact information:
Website: http://acvermen.blogspot.com
Email: acvermen@yahoo.com
Phone numbers: 904 714 2272 904 303 2679

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Reading Comfort Zones..

What about reading or what kinds of books take you out of your comfort zone...
Now let's forget editing, formatting and those kinds of things,
I mean when you have a well-written book in your hand, what moves you to a place of discomfort,
But will not allow you to put the book down,
I am pretty easy when it comes to book types,
My first loves are lit fiction, documentary stylye non-fiction and mainstream fiction,
But I have been known to read everything,
I will admit that I have read some erotica that took me out of my comfort zone,
Because when I came to know what erotica was it had very little to do with extremely hardcore or with violence, I love well written, heated sex scenes, but when a woman is being harmed or hurt that is uncomfortable for me...
I will admit though, I read a book like that and the writing was so tight, I read to the very end, uncomfortable the whole time...
Another thing that sometimes gets to me is overblown 'materialism', my eyes glaze over when every other page is about clothes, jewelry or rides...
I am currently reading a book, 'Love's Troubadors' that I had preconcieved notions about when I started reading, but I am really enjoying and the uber narrative style has become so cool, because the writer has made me feel her character's pain and what she is going through, I know her...
Come on fess up, I want to know...

smooches,
Nosy Angel

Comfort Zones

Comfort zones, we all have them...
We know what we like to eat...
To read...
To write...
And we do it in those ways because it is comfortable,
However to grow, sometimes we have to move from our zones...
Most of my work life has been spent in comfort zones...
I have had a variety of careers,
But that all pretty much existed in arenas where I knew,
I would do well...
Figures and Logic,
That is where I worked and what worked for me,
Maybe the corporation was different,
But if numbers and logic were involved,
I was good...
I also did not take on things I knew I didn't do well,
If I tried it and it didn't work,
I didn't do it again,
Writing a book took me way out of my comfort zone...
I had written many things,
Had even won a scholarship based on a written work,
But it wasn't the same,
Writing a book meant that I was taking a risk,
Putting myself out there on the line,
With the expectation that people would purchase,
Read and hopefully enjoy what I had written,
And since reading is so subjective,
I knew that the way my mind worked,
I was not going to write in a way that was prescribed,
The beauty of it all,
Was I was so innocent,
I wrote that first book,
Unleashing on the world without anyone's input,
And had sold a respectable number of copies before I was really,
Involved in the literary scene,
So once I was and I discovered how much I didn't know,
Enough readers had spoken, positively, encouragingly and constructively,
Allowing me to know that I could do this,
I just needed to work on some 'thangs.'
Also I came to writing from a place of some economic comfort,
I knew that if I didn't sell a book,
I could go back to a pretty nice life...
So I started out with a big plan,
To write a trilogy,
Book II was my baby,
'Cinnamon's Universe', it took me fourteen months from the publication of
'Black's Obsession'to put it out there, though it was done before my short stories,
Just held on to it,
Once I had done book II, Book III, Brown's Possession, came so quick it startled me,
Now I know why,
I had become comfortable again,
I needed to do something different,
I had told that story and needed to step once again,
Out of the zones and take a chance on what I had meant to do in the first place...
I needed to stretch,
And sprint, launch, spring out of my comfort zone,
Because I knew, there is never a time,
When Growth is not a good thing...

angelia