It's always a rush when you get home from a trip, but this last week was even more so, even though I didn't do as much as I had in previous trips, like India etc. etc. But for those who missed it, I've been away from the PC for a while as for the last seven days (well, seven days until Monday) I was in Los Angeles, the city of Angels. And, for a change, Time Lords.

I know, I know - I've been a bit lax in my posts recently, but this has mainly been because I've been writing my arse off and getting ready for Gallifrey One / my LA trip which is in only a week now. And a lot of the pre-planning that goes into the work beforehand, including the brainstorming of the ideas that I'll be pitching while I'm there in Hollywood. Ideas, positive brainworms that have crawled screaming from the fertile minds of both myself and Daniel Boultwood.

A couple of years ago, actually closer to three now, I  sat with a director friend, Mark Corden and bemoaned the fact that we should work together. Mark agreed. There was a lot of tequila involved. And a couple of other friends who egged us on. Six months later, I had written my first ever screenplay - a short film called 'The Shoot'. Three people, one terrible mistake, one act of revenge. I was committed to the cause, and from there we were busy with finding funding, crew and equipment.

I'm very honoured, as I've just been informed by celebrity chum Alan J Porter that Outlaw: the Legend Of Robin Hood has just been announced as one of The American Library Association's (through the Young Adult Library Services Association's) annual list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. Nominated as one of approx. 130 titles and eventually getting through to the end as one of 70-odd official winners, as you can imagine both Sam, myself and all of the guys at Walker Books and Candlewick Press are over the moon at this. And we promise you that the next in the series, Excalibur: the Legend Of King Arthur will be even better.

So today I sit at my desk and letter pages of two comics - well, Graphic Novels, really - The Phone Goes Dead, for Hachette Children's Books, an adaptation of an Anthony Horowitz book, drawn by Dan Boultwood - and the final pages of The Gloom, for Arcana Publishing. again, drawn by Dan Boultwood.

And so the decade ends in eight hours (well, for us on GMT, anyway) and we leave the naughties and enter the teens or something like that. I don't mind. Because 2010 already promises to be a fun and interesting year. I started 2009 with high hopes, and high results were what I received, in spades. It was the busiest and most financially beneficial year I've had to date, and I for one would like to see this trend continue. I started 2009 with deadlines, and I end them with them, which in a way is good. The circle turns.

I've noticed a lot of people doing their 'best of the decade' type posts this week, and with the 'noughties' turning into the 'teens' I can see why this is. And, as a comic writer who started during this decade, I certainly have a lot to crow about over the last six years. But rather than talk about the best things I wrote, or even the worst things that I wrote, I thought I'd talk about the things that never happened, that changed mid way, that got cancelled, that simply didn't occur the way I expected them to. Pitches with artists that never got anywhere, stories that simply died, others still lost in development hell. So settle down as I tell you, with often never-seen-before artwork (that if you right click and 'view as' will show the full size image) of the 'Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda' of my comic writing life.

One of the things that I love to do around this time of year is look back and see what I was doing this time last year, or even the one before. With things like Livejournal (which I've shamefully ignored over the last few months during my hectic times) it's easy to use the archive function and suchlike. So, let's have a quick look at this.