New Home Office rules ban graphic novelist
Comic artist Nikhil Singh, illustrator of the acclaimed graphic novelSalem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers has been held in South Africa for five months - unable to attend his own book launch - due to new Home Office rules that deem him 'underqualified'.South Africa-born Singh has been a resi

Art for Hearts charity auction
Normally I don't plug charity events on this blog unless they're to do with some form of cancer research [I've lost too many good people to the big C]. But this appeal from regular Vicious Imagery reader Ian Stacey sounds like a good cause to me... ART FOR HEARTS

My journey with 'Doctors'. so far
Nope, I'm not at this year's Screenwriters' Festival in Cheltenham. Wish I was, especially now the event's closer to the town centre, but commitments elsewhere precluded me attending. I've papers to mark for the creative writing MA, lectures to plan, a script to polish, and pitches to develop for Fantomen and Doctors. Instead of talking about writing, I'll actually be writing. So, for all those people who wish they could be at SWF 09 but aren't, here's a behind the scenes peek at the long process by which I got my first TV drama screenwriting credit. Way back in 2002 I met a writer who was then a regular Doctors scribe. He encouraged me to try out for the medical drama series, p

Going on location with Doctors
It's been a madcap few weeks, and I can't see things slowing down for a while yet. Since this is one of my rare days at home without a screaming deadline [plenty of deadlines, just none of them screaming yet], thought I'd say hello and tell you what I've doing lately. Teaching, lots of teaching. Writing, plenty of that too. Polishing my submission for the Scotland Writes opportunity, especially.But I spent the weekend away, most of it in That Fancy London. Had a reunion dinner with almost everyone from the Lighthouse TV drama team writing project, lovely to catch up and see how people are doing. Since we last met in April there's been a marriage in the ranks, and a new baby is i

Belated happy birthday for this blog
Vicious Imagery turned four on Saturday and I forgot. Too busy engaged with manual labour elsewhere - totting that barge, lifting that bale. Got the aches and strains to prove it, too. Bent over like an enfeebled question mark as a consequence. Being a writer prepares you for many things in life, but physical labour isn't one of them. Still, I should recover by the end of today.This blog was launched as an online journal for the screenwriting MA I'd just started at Screen Academy Scotland. By happy coincidence I spent Friday night socialising with several students from my academy days. Each of us has followed a different path since completing the course. Some have abandoned scre