My English teacher showed me the joy of fiction writing. I struggled, on and off, but my life was richer than the fiction I created.
First recognition took decades. My creation attracted an agent, and she managed to get it in front of a line of publishers. I have the best of memories of working with her, but with each rejection, I held tighter to my determination to change genre.
Researching the intelligence work opened my eyes. I found new threats, as well as misinterpretations, hidden behaviour and the cost of acting early. I became fascinated by the unheralded roles of people on whom the big personalities depended and wrote short pieces about them.
Intelligence thinking seeped into my professional life. I found new methods of handling unsolvable challenges, and developed consultancy methods around them.
With new experiences, opportunities widened and the demands on my time. I closed my consultancy chapter to explore new storytelling possibilities of people facing pressure, misrecognition, broken assumptions and hidden systems.
From my writing journey …
Ethics, careers and surviving the intelligence profession
