I'm Valerie Plame Wilson and I'm excited to be here and blog about my

book Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House,

which goes on sale Monday, Oct 22. When my publisher sent me the

finished copy earlier this week, it was thrilling. It felt like a new

chapter (forgive the pun) has begun on the journey that has taken some

incredible twists and turns since July 14, 2003, when my covert

identity was exposed and ended a career that I loved. I've written

honestly about my life: why I went to work for the CIA, my

paramilitary training, the sort of operations we developed and ran to

find intelligence on Iraq's alleged WMD programs in the run up to the

war, as well as personal information, such as my battle with

postpartum depression and the difficulties I had going from a private

to a public persona literally overnight. My publisher, Simon and

Schuster, decided to print the blacked out redactions demanded by the

CIA and hopefully those passages (or lack thereof) speak for

themselves and the extent to which the CIA thought the material in the

book was classified.

Watching myself on 60 Minutes was surreal -- who can ever get

used to seeing themselves on TV? I guess the book tour has really

started and it will be a crazy week ahead. After four and a half years

and everyone else in world talking about me, it feels good to finally

be able to tell my story myself. It's a story about the consequences

of speaking truth to power and the critical importance of holding our

government to account for its words and deeds. I'm off to bed,

because I have an early wakeup call tomorrow to do the Today Show. I

look forward to sharing my reactions and stories with you from the

road over the next few days. I will be posting throughout the week and

appreciate your comments and support.