Meg Calvin Writes Like Her Parents Are Dead (will give credit for this quote to Jason Aaron who originally said it)

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:00

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I’m one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I’m an award-winning musical composer, a feature writer, essayist, and, of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little bit about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:25

Today, we're welcoming Meggie Calvin to the show. According to NPR Host, Doctor David Dault, Meg writes in a style that is a full steam comedic grant. She not only is an Amazon bestselling author herself who's currently birthing her third book, but she also serves as a writing and marketing coach who helps writers do the deep spiritual work to create their Amazon bestselling books on Kindle, paperback, and Audible. Welcome to Author Express, Meggie.

Meg Calvin [: 00:00:49

Thank you, Kathleen. I'm so excited to be here. I've loved listening to some of your episodes, and I love this conversation of authors and their inner work and their creative process. I just, I love what you and Shawna do. So, thanks for the honor of guesting.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:03

Thank you. We love it too. So, let's start out, we ask everyone the same question to start out with. Tell us the most interesting thing about where you are from.

Meg Calvin [: 00:01:12

Oh, I love this question. I love this question. I'm going to go with where I've lived since ‘04 because as an army brat, I moved around a lot. So, since ‘04, I came to Winfield, Kansas for college. And Winfield, Kansas is a quirky, magical vortex where time just stopped in the 80’s, and it preserved all the best things about small town life. And we value live music and being one with nature, and we're more diverse than Portland. Like, we have all these amazing things going for us, and we host one of the largest, it might be the largest outdoor music festival in America. Our population doubles every September for our Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival. So, that's,

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:53

Wow.

Meg Calvin [: 00:01:53

That is, yep. I was born this incarnation to be in Winfield, Kansas.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:58

That is very cool. Sounds great. There's a place that's really far out in Kansas where we stopped. And it was another place that it was, like, basically six houses in the humongous green tower, but then they had this, it's Quinter. It's Quinter, Kansas, has this hallmark stores/soda fountain/hardware stores/feed store. Like, it's the weirdest thing, but it was like, we stopped with the family on the way to Colorado and had the best ice cream there. And I tell everybody about it. I'm like, if you're driving Colorado stop in Quinter. So, it's just the same, feels the same way.

Meg Calvin [: 00:02:33

Feels the same. Yep. I can't wait to go to Quinter now. That's awesome.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:37

Yes. It's very far out west. It's almost to the Colorado border, but you should definitely go. So, tell us what's the last thing that made you laugh really, really hard.

Meg Calvin [: 00:02:46

Oh, man. Oh, I love this question too. It would probably have to be, I'm rewatching Mindy Kailing's epic show, The Mindy Project. And I'm rewatching that. It's phenomenal. 5 seasons. It’s so great. So, so great. So, it would have to be one of those, one of those episodes. Yeah. She's amazing.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:08

That's fun. I don't watch a lot of TV because I don't have time. So, that’s very cool. We'll have to go check that out. So, tell us what's the best piece of advice anybody's ever given to you.

Meg Calvin [: 00:03:18

It would be Rumi. Rumi didn't say this to me, but his quote came to me, which was that which you seek also seeks you.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:25

That is so true too. Yeah. Because it's very easy to go looking for, you get what you look for. I just think I said that to one of my kids, not very long ago.

Meg Calvin [: 00:03:35

That's great mom advice. That's really good.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:38

Well, that's really cool. We've learned a little bit about you. Let's learn a little bit about your book and it's called, I Am My Own Sanctuary: How A Recovering Holy-Roller Found Healing and Power. I mean, that's what a title right there just to start with. So, who did you write this book for? Who do you think is going to connect with this book? Who were you thinking of when you wrote it?

Meg Calvin [: 00:03:57

Yes. This book was for recovering people pleasers. Or people, like, that I would identify as a recovering holy-roller who had gotten lost along the way of Christianity and began making my priority more appeasing and impressing loud Christians instead of, who might have meant well, instead of trusting the voice of the divine within me and coming home to the truth that my desires are safe. That I am intelligent, that I have agency, that I can take radical responsibility, and trusting myself. So, it came from the, I've noticed with other authors I serve that write memoir or nonfiction and in myself that sometimes books are birthed when, just from a question. And the question that started my book was the question of why are so many ministers lazy? Why are ministers,

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:49

oh.

Meg Calvin [: 00:04:50

Yeah. Oh, I went there. The other weird part of the book is I've been preaching since I was thirteen. So, from 13 to 32, I was writing sermons and serving on a church staff and went to seminary. And so, it also is the satirical self-help side of, self-deprecation of myself and how many beliefs I had to rewire within me. But it started with the question of why are ministers lazy? Why do we as Christians feel that ambition as Reese Witherspoon says is a dirty word. Like, can ambition not be good? Can ambition not be holy? Can I not use it for good? So, that's what started it. And then it became, I trusted it. I surrendered to the book idea, and it became what it is. Which, it's like landing a plane. Before I wrote the book, the book told me, I know that sounds woo-woo, but it's true. The book told me it wants to feel like Seth Myers conceived a book baby with a nun.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:47

Oh my gosh. And there we have the comedy right there.

Meg Calvin [: 00:05:50

There it is. So, that's what the book is.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:52

That sort of answers the other question I was going to ask you, which is when did you or when did you first come up with the idea for the book. So, did it take you a long time to write? Did it just kind of vomit from your mind? How did that work?

Meg Calvin [: 00:06:05

Yes. It's very weird. This is happening on a third book too. I start writing June. The past two books were started in June. Had rough draft done 6 months later. And by December, the first book was 24,000 words, really short, teachable resource, nonfiction. The second one was 64,000 words. In the same amount of time, though. And so, something goes, something I don't know if it's astrology or whatnot, but June. June is, like, my time to start birthing a book. Yeah. And so, that was the, about 6 months to get it to 1st draft then on to copy and line editor and then back to me. Yeah. So, that's the amount of time. And I think the idea, when the idea first presented itself, I don't, I've noticed this in other authors too, that write nonfiction memoir. Sometimes they'll be like, I have 4 ideas. And then once they get kind of sit with those ideas, they realize, oh, they're kind of all potentially chapters under the umbrella. Yeah. The same book. And that's what happened to me. I had about 8 ideas, 8 to 10. And then I realized, oh, wait, these are chapters under the umbrella of how we can find healing and power as recovering people pleasers, as recovering holy-rollers. So, yeah. The book dropped December of 19. It was in the publisher by March of 19. I thought, I'm going to write this book June of 18. And so, it came to me, no. It came to me May, May of 18. I'm going to write this book and then June, I started it. It's so, yeah. Think that answered your question.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:38

Yeah. So, you mentioned a publisher. So, if you've worked with the publisher and everything, what's one thing you wish that you knew sooner about the process of publishing a book?

Meg Calvin [: 00:07:48

My views have definitely changed. Back in 2016, when I submitted my first book, I thought I had to have a publisher. And then after working with 2 publishing companies, I realized, oh, wait. I don't. But things I wish I would have known, what's coming to me to say is, to trust what the book reveals to you and not worry about certain steps that have to happen later on. For example, copyright page or citations. What, will I do footnotes or do in notes? Like, those sorts of things will come, and you will know when the time is right, what is best for you and your book. And so, I would say surrender to what the book is telling you right now. And trust it and follow it. So, just doing the next step, I realize that's very broad and vague and ambiguous, but I think sometimes as writers, we can get stuck in analysis paralysis when we're worried about things that might be step D or E, but the book's like, but here's step B and C. Could you just take this one step and outline this chapter just today? It's, so, trusting that the book, my belief, anyway, that the more you let the book idea within you know that you trust it, you see it, and you love it, the louder it's going to get. And you guys, you'll work together with it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:03

I like that a lot. So, who's encouraged you in writing, or is this something that you pretty much came to independently? Do you have writers in your family?

Meg Calvin [: 00:09:12

Oh. So, my ancestors, in the mid-1700s in Scotland, the McMane couple, their blood is my blood. That got dark. But anyway, my ancestors, they were burnt. They were burnt at the stake by Catholics. We love the Catholics, but they burnt my, they burnt my protestant ancestors on the stake because of their boat rocking Protestant literature. And so, I believe it definitely is in my blood. And like most authors say, I've always, not most. I didn't mean to say that. As some authors say, I've always loved to journal. I wrote plays as a kid and we'd act them out. And when I was thirteen, my missionary grandparents started taking me to churches and conferences, and I would preach. And then so the words would come to me and I loved it. So, I'm trying to think, yeah, my mom and my grandmother, other mentors along the way have definitely encouraged me. For sure. Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:08

That's really great. As a Catholic, I feel I have to apologize on behalf of my church for your ancestors.

Meg Calvin [: 00:10:15

No. No apologies needed.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:19

So, let's kind of wrap things up here. Tell us where is the best place for people to find you online.

Meg Calvin [: 00:10:24

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, you can find me on Instagram, heymegcalvin, and you are right. My pen name is my legal name, Meggie Lee Calvin. Friends call me Meg, and Facebook, Meg Calvin, TikTok, Meg Calvin. And if there are other authors, which I'm sure, because I was an author that inhaled your episodes, other authors or helpful authors listening, I do have a free training that your listeners can have, which is 3 ways to make marketing your book more fun and less frustrating. And that is a 20-minute video training at megcalvin.com, and they can just go enjoy that. Because sometimes marketing isn't fun. So, I like to make it fun for authors.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:07

Yeah. I predict that you will have an influx off of that because, yes, I think that that resonates with a lot of us. So, thanks so much for that. So, tell us in closing what book or story inspires you the most these days?

Meg Calvin [: 00:11:21

Oh, there's 2. And one of them is Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove or A Man Called Ove, to say it in Swedish. If I'm saying it right. And Tom Hanks's movie is good, but it's not the book. And so, yes. And then I don't think it's based on a book but it's speaking to me. I watched the movie with my daughter, Turning Red.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:43

Oh, yeah.

Meg Calvin [: 00:11:44

The themes in that of ancestral wounds within the divine feminine, I am hitting on those themes or tropes, word of a word. I want to use there in my third book. I'm learning to write fiction right now with a coach. And I am touching on similar themes. So, Turning Red and A Man Called Ove, are really speaking to me right now.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:04

Oh, those are fantastic and very different from what other people have said. So, thank you for that.

Meg Calvin [: 00:12:11

A children’s movie. I love that.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:12

Thank you so much.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:14

Right. You know what? A lot of us who are writing have kids of varying ages. I was going to say a lot of us have small children, but the reality is that my youngest is now 11. So, I don't think I fit that category anymore, although I just can't believe I've outgrown it. So, thanks so much for being with us today, Meg, and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

Mega Calvin [: 00:12:32

Thank you, Kathleen.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:34

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you’ll take a second to give us some stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform. We'll be back next Wednesday. And in the meantime, follow us on Instagram, @AuthorExpresspodcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.