Debbie Seagle Interview Published on: 29, May 2024

As an airshow director, I had the opportunity to fly on the wing of a biplane, and I wrote quite a few commercials and advertisements. I won a silver addy for a Blue Angels radio commercial for the N’Awlin’s Air Show. But, as you can imagine, the most exciting part of that job was becoming friends with the incredible performers, military personnel, and vendors associated with that world. They have the greatest stories.

I eventually joined the team of one of the world’s best airshow pilots, Greg Poe, and he taught me to fly (and do a few loops and rolls). We called ourselves carnies because we flew from one airshow to the next - 27 times a year.

Before that adventure, I was married to a US Marine almost 30 years and was awarded the opportunity to leave my home, my friends, and my job for his next duty station every few years. My three sons adapted well to being tossed around the world, and it gave them understanding and respect for other cultures and traditions. More importantly, they gained the insight to appreciate the privilege of being an American.

Moving to a new life periodically gave me the opportunity to find something new to experience. I started writing a book every time we moved. Working for a company in DC that mined information to catch bad guys led me to training and working with quite a few government agencies, thus my TS Clearance.

The clearance qualified me for writing Top-Secret proposals for a government contractor. It just so happens that I met the CEO when he was the embassy project manager in Oman. He knew I wrote reports and newsletter for the embassy, and hired me as the senior technical writer.

That’s when I found myself writing proposals for nuclear submarines and restoring Iraqi oil after the invasion of Iraq.

Spoiler Alert: I knew Nothing about that stuff.

But I learned how to get the info to write winning billion-dollar proposals. It was like running a gauntlet. There were 7 security checkpoints to enter the writing dome. I was locked away for six weeks in a room full of smart people, excavating their knowledge to make their expertise look credible on paper. Correction: thousands of papers.

My attempts to interject some levity into serious projects were always rejected though. Hey, you can’t blame a humor writer for trying.

Getting to know people from every walk of life has enriched me in countless ways. I still keep in touch with people all over the world. That is a true blessing, because as a writer, I am not as sociable as I was before I chained myself to the computer for days on end. I’m now obsessed with sharing my thoughts and making up stories to amuse – anyone.

Wow! Thank you, I like that title. I’ll try to make this long story short (and that’s really tough for me). Basically, my husband returned from overseas with a girlfriend, and I flushed both of them from my life. Being completely alone for the first time, in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, turned my thoughts inward and I spent a lot of time writing to myself about, well, me and my new life.

My focus was no longer centered around his career and his preferences. So, I began writing to clear my mind; and somehow, I found most of my predicaments and failures to be unusually hilarious.

A few years later, my fiancée hit on my cousin the week after my oldest son died. I erased that fiancée lickety-split. It took a minute to recenter, and when I did, I ended up in my tastefully cluttered office behind my bedroom for 14 hours a day in my own little world.

I imagined that, with my vast knowledge (from being deserted and heartbroken), I was helping other discarded lovers stumble through the other side of a slaughtered relationship or the loss of anything they loved. Then I couldn’t stop the flood of ideas I wanted to share.

That was a short answer, right?

It’s funny, no matter what I’ve done in the past, I found a way to weasel some writing into my job description. For the air show gig, I wrote front-page newspaper stories with photos (and magazine articles, and radio & TV spots, and trade journal features) from each airshow.

As a mom, I wrote (unpublished) children’s books and Erma Bombeck-style essays about the life of a military wife.

When I worked as marketing director for military bases, I developed publicity & marketing campaigns, public relations and customer service messages, sponsorship agreements, proposals, newspaper articles, and contracts (all with a tinge of humor that either went unnoticed or thoughtfully ignored).

As a member of the New Orleans Mayor’s Military Advisory Committee, I wrote articles praising our outstanding accomplishments. That usually required creativity.

As the operations manager for the Federal Deployment Center, I wrote a public relations program for business development that set the groundwork for capturing future business opportunities and communicated deployment and operations activity (whether they wanted it or not).

But I never neglected the opportunity to sneak in a little flavor and funny when I had the opportunity. I spent my careers being amazed that they never fired me for some of the things I wrote!

Most of the writing I’ve done a s a job felt stifling, but I made it fun by surprising people with my warped view of various situations. My Sunday column at the Times-Picayune was titled Air-Waves and focused on the joint reserve base and the Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, and other military personnel stationed there.

My attempts to sound less formal and more entertaining were often edited by the newspaper, but that never influenced my writing style. It was exciting when they missed editing-out the quips I wedged into my column.

I worked for the embassy security officer and wormed my way into writing the embassy newsletter (which was globally distributed). I turned it into a comically informative mini-magazine, replacing the common practice of copying DoD alerts and announcements onto legal-sized paper and calling it a newsletter. After defying the embassy admin officer, I submitted my first unconventional newsletter (including photos and funny stories about embassy events and personalities) to the ambassador. He approved my antics and people began reading the newsletter for more than the latest terrorist threat alerts. He had a great sense of humor. It’s hard to believe HE didn’t get fired for allowing some of the things I wrote.

Thank you! Honestly, the success of a book is largely about publicity and visibility. Ironically, I don’t promote my own baby as well as I can anyone else’s anything. Tweets from AllAuthor are a hidden gem that keep my books alive - with little effort from me. I occasionally do a count-down deal on Amazon and let my readers know about it.

I like to believe that my books are also being discovered organically because of their power to inspire, entertain, and create happiness.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention – “Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses” is being made into a comedy movie! I’m finding it easier than I expected to let the script-writer interpret my scenes for the sake of entertainment. The film is scheduled for release next summer, 2025. WoooHooo!

Looking back, I feel like I was always the cheerleader for someone else’s life. So, writing my first book to encourage and uplift readers was something I was good at, and I love the self-help/inspirational genre.

I learned at a recent class reunion that I was somewhat of a class clown. Apparently, it has always made me happy to make people smile. Humor-writing is my passion. A childhood friend recently shared a video of 5-yr-old-me making everyone laugh. Ah… the glory days.

As you can tell by my inability to condense my answers, memoir-writing flows easily from my fingers, sometimes leaving my brain behind.

Then there’s the children’s book genre. I identify.

I have some time-travel and murder/mystery writing to perfect, but my next book is a novel that is being targeted by a lobbyist for prison reform in congress. It’s pretty heavy and thought-provoking.

I’m all over the place! That’s how I roll, and live, and write.

Oh yes. I never realized how beautiful the mountains were until I returned from living in the middle east and Europe. That’s when I recognized the natural lure of nature for the first time. The colors, the landscapes, the change of seasons all invoke memories, smells, and emotions that bring life to my writing.

Rural life and the absurdities of small-town living infuses its inhabitants with resilience and the resources to find absurdity in daily deeds. But being outside opens my heart and mind to feel alive and share those feelings with anyone who will read them. Without the ability to float down the river and slide down a slope, I’d be reduced to curling up on the couch to watch sit-com reruns all day.

Snow skiing is exhilarating for me, and our best family memories find us on the side of a mountain. What I cherish most is family game nights in front of a fireplace at the rental cabin while our muscles recover from the slopes. That feeling of exhilaration makes me want to write about it.

My dad taught me to sail, and I inherited his 25’ McGreggor sailboat. I moved it from the marina to a spot behind my cabin when I became single. The sound of wind in the sails and the challenge of harnessing that power to navigate with mother nature is the best feeling in the world. Well, one of them. I plan to sail again once I find someone to rescue my boat that’s now stuck in the woods, under a fallen tree.

I’ve written notebooks full of scenes and scenarios while floating aimlessly on my boat. I’m not sure it would be the same with a tree across my mast.

I became a master gardener but have neglected my position these past few years – to write. That doesn’t prevent me from digging in the dirt and pruning religiously. I love sharing the treasures from my soil, and while gardening, I imagine what one of my characters would do if… (you know, wherever thoughts take me). I’ve noticed that a big goofy grin dominates my face as I plant and weed. I can’t help it, and that’s fine with me. I’m practically an expert in looking goofy.

Hiking gives me a pivotal perspective of my surroundings that no one sees out my window, but hopefully experience in my writing.

Kayaking, canoeing, and tubing refresh my thoughts. I love being on the water. I never go paddling alone, so it makes for a memorable day with family or friends. Inspiration always reflects from the water.

As for a good wine, well… I can’t write without a good cup of coffee or wine (in a beautiful wine glass of course). Ok, maybe I could, but it’s my way of settling in to get lost in my writing. In fact, I think it’s time to switch to a beautiful wine glass now! Thanks for the reminder.

Time. I have a book ready to publish but I’ve been wrestling with the title. If I had time to edit and have book covers made, I’d have at least 5 more books out there right now. Sometimes I’m distracted by delightful things like this introspective interview, shopping for wine, or searching for mountainside sailboat extraction experts.

I have a few manuscripts that I may never publish. There’s just something about what I wrote that I can’t share - or a storyline that stopped me from believing the story. So, I’ll look at those another day, someday. Somebody give me time!

I do plan to publish them, really, I do. The next book in the hopper is a novel about prisoners, the war on drugs, and the horrendous treatment of non-violent drug-related inmates. They rarely receive a fresh fruit or vegetable or actually have any programs to better themselves before being released into our society again. Many receive a longer sentence (for harming themselves with drugs) than the time given to criminals who rape or kill someone!

I’ve interviewed countless former incarcerated humans and the novel I’ve written makes me furious and sad. I hate the story – it’s heart-wrenching, yet powerful. Every time I try to rewrite certain sections, I revert to the original shocking story and it makes me cry. I don’t know if I want to make people cry.

The book after that (almost completed) is a novel about 5 women, in their golden years, looking back to the events that shaped their lives. I think it’s going to be my funniest book ever. I laugh while writing it, and I feel so giddy sometimes – I stand up and wiggle out an interpretive dance about it.

You got it. Juggling is a metaphor for the life I’ve lived. I was good at it, working while being an involved mom. But the actual juggling the three balls thing … well, I just think it shares a funny visual, plus… I really can’t DOiT!

Keep notes from adventures that bore you or thrill you. Every story has two sides (or more). Don’t believe yourself when you think, “oh I won’t forget that.” You will. Write it now.

Dig up every opportunity to learn something new and get to know people from every corner of your life.

Writing is like a garden – it’s nothing to look at if you only have one type of plant in your creation. Variety enriches the soil… uh and the soul.

Funny story: My family hates my books. I didn’t expect that at all. When I decided to write my first book, I had to forget about what anyone would think, and that’s how I finally found the courage to include some of my journals in my books. So, I mindlessly published, and, oh the slap back of having the audacity to tell my stories!

In the back of my mind, I expected my grandchildren to be proud that their MiMi was an author. I should have used a pen name. My editor advised against it, and now I’m praying to regain invitations to birthday parties and graduations ceremonies. I may need a new editor.

On the upside, I’ve had quite a bit of positive feedback from readers (who don’t know me). They have found joy and healing in my books. Fans say my books give them a more positive outlook on the disappointments in their life. Making people feel good about, and laugh at, themselves is what I envisioned when I released “Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses,” and “10 Steps to Get Over Dick Head.”

I felt like I was holding the reader’s hand saying, “look how funny this horrible situation is… stop being sad. Let me show you how life is full of humor and hope.”

You know what I find rewarding about becoming an author? It’s being included in writing groups with other authors. The most astounding thing is: I have met, and become friends with, famous and incredible world-renowned authors. And, get this, they are just real people who also sit in front of a computer for ungodly hours pouring out their hearts to readers!

Also, they enjoy talking about plot and arc and inciting incidents. It’s exhilarating. My non-writing friends cringe when I start that type of conversation. They’d rather share photos of our grandbabies and talk about what we did about aphids in our gardens this year. Thank goodness for the variety.

AllAuthor is the best platform ever! It’s so much more than a terrific book promo or book discovery site. I love the mockup banners and the Promo Gif Banners!

What an asset that AllAuthor does some marketing for my books by tweeting my messages regularly. I sure don’t have time for that.

I’ve even discovered other authors I’d like to get to know.

There is so much more. I recently realized that what I thought was a landing page on AllAuthor can be used as my personal website! WHAT.

Then, there is this author interview. Thank you for the opportunity to answer your questions. It has energized me to examine the where, when, and the -what the heck- of why I do this writing thing. The grass keeps growing, and laundry lingers today. But now I’m drawn to my next chapter.