My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I began writing fiction because it was the only way to tell all the intricacies of a real-life spy story.
I think I honestly invented my own genre, the historical spy novel.
The world has changed, the CIA is having to change, and again, the challenge for someone like me as a spy novelist is to write realistically about where they're actually going.
I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11.
My autobiography was simply the story of my life.
In many ways, I've been writing personal stories all my life.
One day, I discovered that a couple of people had written 'fanfic' - stories of their own based on my characters. Just the thought of people thinking that hard and deeply about something I've written is incredible.
Though my stories aren't autobiographical, I do sometimes use things from my life.
If I'm gonna tell a real story, I'm gonna start with my name.
But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.