I often have scripts sent to me with allegedly Scottish characters where I end up telling them, 'You're going to have to rethink this whole thing!'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.
Everyone still thinks I'm Scottish - that's totally wicked.
I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.
The establishment, the newspapers, they try to create something called Scottish literature, but when people are actually going to write, they are not going to necessarily prescribe to that, they'll write what they feel.
My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.
There are hundreds of thousands of Scots who acknowledge English, Irish or Welsh parts of their very being. Lives and destinies are similarly intertwined in Catalonia and Spain, in Ukraine and Russia.
It's ironic that the growth of Scottish nationalism has precipitated in the English the sort of hand-wringing the Scots have always done over who they are.
I'm as Scottish as they come.
Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.
Wherever I go in the world, people all know about Scotland Street and are always asking me about what's going to happen to the characters next.