From Open Heart Surgery to Bestselling Author: Megan Michelle's Journey | Episode 141

Megan Michelle, welcome to the Bookaholic podcast. >> Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. >> Yes. Thank you for joining me today. And you have a very what sounds like a very exciting debut novel hitting the shelves and it's called Skyllock. That name in and of itself sounds a little intriguing. So before we get into Skyllock, let's start talking about its origins. I've heard a lot of inspirational stories about how authors get started here on this channel. Some people come from a place of career like lawyers that turn into writers, i.e. John Gisham, that type of thing. And sometimes it comes from a deeply personal place. And yours is a deeply personal place, but yours is one of which it came from. You had open heart surgery to correct a congenital defect. And this is when the story comes to you. Please explain. Sure. Yeah. So, I thought hard on not having that surgery. I really was like, can we just leave me alone? Everything's fine. Life is good. But apparently doctors know things and they wanted to do a valve replacement before anything progressed and got bad because I guess you can recover from surgery easier while you're young and healthy rather than you know when something's an acute problem, right? So I had the surgery. >> It was awful. >> 100% don't recommend open heart surgery, but right >> if you need it. So, it was I would say maybe a month after the surgery that I was just laying in bed and I was off of all of the morphine at that point. I was just taking like a leave and Tylenol, but I was so tired. I was so light sensitive. I was dizzy every time I stood up. I just So, I just laid in bed in the dark and just I think it was just like a major stress detox because I wasn't working. I couldn't do anything. One of my friends would come over and call me out of bed and make me walk around the block with her. But mostly I was just lying there and this story came into my head almost like a movie playing behind your eyes and just of this this woman, this female soldier and she's like leading her team and doing all this cool stuff. And it just kept going and going and eventually it got to the point that I was so engrossed in this and I thought, "This is actually good. I should write this down. So, I grabbed my phone, >> turned the brightness down as far as I as far as I could cuz I knew I'd get a migraine from the light. And then I just opened a Google Doc on my phone and started typing. There's no formatting. There's horrible punctuation and spelling. But I just started typing frantically trying to get all of this out of my head. And since then, it's been more or less non-stop. Just this series just keeps going. >> Wow. Again, I talked to a lot of authors about their world building, the characters, how do they come up with how the character looks, the character names, etc. So, this was just all given to you behind the scenes, behind your eyelids. You saw this woman. I think I saw the cover. You already had the look of this character. Did you already have the name of the character? >> Yeah. Yeah. It was like a download from the universe that had it just came to me. >> Absolutely. >> And then once I was feeling better, I got into it. I started doing some actual research and >> figured out that a lot of what I had written actually was pretty accurate. Some things I needed to change, of course. But I just like, how do I know some of this information? This is so weird. So yeah, definitely I would say some kind of weird divine intervention gift from the universe. Just >> here's the story you're meant to write. Here's what you know, >> your new life purpose is to write these books. >> And you know what? I think about that and I don't know if I've seen this in a movie or a TV show or maybe even read about it myself, but there's sometimes when a character or person has had something traumatic happen to them such as your surgery that you didn't want and you said it was horrible. Then all of a sudden then the person has I don't know some type of extra sensory whatever or some they change in some type of significant type of way. I think that's what happened to you. >> Definitely. I'm not the same person that I was before that surgery at all. I completely 180ed my life. Changed everything. >> Moved halfway around the world and started over and just wow. I know this novel series is what I meant to be doing. I know it's guiding me to all the next I don't want to call them goals, but like next things that I'm meant to be doing and people I meant to be meeting and just Yeah. leveling up. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Tell us a little bit about a little bit but without giving us spoilers about Skyark. >> Of course. So Skyllark is the story of Rachel Riker. She's the first female Navy Seal. She's kicking ass, leading her team on all of these great missions trying to liberate women from global subjugation and dismantle the patriarchy. Um, and she may or may not, yes, we all love that part. And she may or may not be in love with her best friend, who's also her second in command. >> So, it's like an action, adventure, romantic suspense, dark romance. It doesn't really fit into one genre. It It's outside of the box, but you can put it in a lot of different boxes. But definitely the romance tropes are like friends to lovers and found family are the two main ones. So >> yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Now the series, this is a series. So Scholar is the first in the series. And here's another thing. I've interviewed a lot of authors who've done series. Is your series finished or not? >> I don't think it's ever finished. So the first two books are finished. The third one is a mess. >> It's a work in progress. The fourth book is more done than the third book because the fourth book was originally the third book and then my editor got involved and was like, "This isn't how we write books. Apparently, they all need a beginning, middle, and an end." And people don't want to read 700 pages at once. So, >> yeah. True. >> Yeah. So, she jumped in and restructured things. So what was the end of book two became the beginning of book three. >> And so then I there's like kind of some plot holes and gaps to fill in there to make it more cohesive. >> Yes. >> As a series, >> we've got fourish kind of >> there's going to be at least seven books. >> Wow. Oh my gosh. how I'm getting from where I'm at now with the writing to book seven because I've got the conclusion of the series worked out in book seven and then there's it's like writing one novel where you always have the middle part is always the hardest to write because you know how to open it, you know how to build up that tension and then you know what your climax and your ending are going to be, but how to get from point A to point B. I've never spoken to an author who knows the answer to that. Exactly. Without overwhelming the reader or boring the reader or whatever. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can see that. I can definitely see that. And I just do love, let me just repeat it. Works to dismantle the patriarchy and liberate women from global subjugation. I just love the sound. >> Yes. I think we need some of that right now. >> Now, you have a day job. A woman who's got seven books in her head. you have a day job. So, what do you do in your day job? >> I manage I'm a project manager at a pharmaceutical company. So, I sit in a lot of Zoom meetings and discuss budgets and timelines with people. >> Yes, absolutely. So, how do you fit writing into that type of schedule? >> It's really hard. Honestly, I'm lucky that this came out of my surgery because I was on sick leave for so long, so I could get so much done. during that time, but it's definitely like nights and weekends, >> which my friends are like, "Oh, you must be writing because you didn't text me back for two hours." Yeah, >> absolutely. Absolutely. >> Like, are you writing on Saturday or you want to hang out? I'm like, I'm going to try to write. We'll see what happens. I'll let you know. >> You said you moved halfway around the world. So, you started off where and you ended up where? >> I was living in Sweden. So, my ex-husband is Swedish. We met in college in San Francisco. I ended up moving there. I lived there for 13 years. And then after my surgery, I wrote Skylark. I got divorced and I picked up and moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia. >> Wow. Grief. That won't >> Yeah, it was a big year. >> Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. You're not too far from me now. I'm in North Carolina. neighbors now. >> We are. Are you enjoying the hurricane on it? >> Oh gosh. I Yeah, I heard that information today and I'm like, okay, thank goodness I'm not on the coast, so I'm I'm inland. But anyway, absolutely. So, >> few blocks from the Atlantic, so I'm just It's gonna get flooded this week. And on which day? >> Oh my gosh. Go to any higher level that you can. >> Yeah. Megan Michelle, I wish you all the luck, the fortune, the prosperity with the Skyllock series. I love what it stands for and it's available on every reading platform and bookstore. >> I sincerely hope that it is. If not, then I did something wrong. The best place to buy it though is on my website which is www.mmeganheyenmichelle.com because that's where you get really pretty special editions with sprayed edges and I'll sign them. But yeah, you can also go through Amazon. It should be on barnes &oble.com, bookshop.org, anywhere you're getting books. And if they don't have it, just ask them for it and explain to them that they need to carry more indie authors because that's always a struggle. Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for that, Megan. And we'll have those links or at least one of those links in the video description box below and on the podcast show notes. Megan Michelle, once again, thank you for joining me today. >> So much. You're welcome.