Making things up since 1837. Contact me at gordonwrotesomething [at] gordondarroch.com
My second blog guest in as many months is the Herald's excellent magazine writer Teddy Jamieson, whose first book (see right) casts a perceptive eye over the sporting landscape in the place where he grew up - Northern Ireland. Read on if you want to know which is the best supported football club in all … Continue reading Fighting colours: Talking Northern Ireland sport with Teddy Jamieson
I’m delighted to welcome as my first blogging guest Mr Jonathan Pinnock, whose novel Mrs Darcy vs the Aliens has just landed in unsuspecting bookshops up and down the country. His ribald extraterrestrial Regency period mashup began life as an online web serial and has had an interesting gestation to say the least. (Jon is also … Continue reading Tension and tentacles: An appointment with Jonathan Pinnock
For the last 18 months I’ve been attending a group in my home town where writers, agents, publishers and anyone else with an interest in the book business meet, chat and have a few drinks. More often than not it goes like this: someone from the industry stands at the microphone and tells everyone that … Continue reading If publishing’s in the Last Chance Saloon, I’m ordering lunch
A thing I remembered recently: I’m really bad at hand gestures. Shouldn’t do them. It’s the same with dancing. Anything to do with spontaneous body posturing is just not my field. Fortunately I realised this and acted on it before the guy sprung from the ledge.It happened like this. I was on my way to … Continue reading Chippings from the quarry #2: The railing
Fuck the police #londonriots mindless senseless violence this is not a protest this is burglary and looting where are the police watch the bbc now there’s buildings in flames a powder keg waiting for a spark so sad disenfranchised young people of Britain where is Boris Johnson huge big awesome flames leaping up in the … Continue reading Liquid accelerant: a #londonriots multimedia experience in four hundred words
About ten years ago I had the task of following the royal family around Scotland. This sounds far more glamorous than it really was, since I wasn’t a royal correspondent in any real sense. I never saw the inside of a palace (not the hallowed areas marked off by red ropes, anyway) or got to … Continue reading What good are the royals?
Now here's an update I ought to have got round to a long time ago. So I'll cut all the blurbery and just say that my story, The Storm-Flood, is available to read in Issue Five of The Right Eyed Deer, which you can download here. What is it? How about, 'a sweetly melancholic story … Continue reading No time like the present (especially when it’s been and gone)
I’ve not been doing very much writing recently. The flotsam of ideas in my head have been stubbornly refusing to connect, like flecks of soured milk in a cup of tea or clumps of wet sugar. Then I saw this delightful little film and realised, not for the first time, that the best place to … Continue reading The secret life of books
One of the stories I wrote for the 2010 Whittaker Prize has made it into the competition anthology. It’s slightly curious, because of all the eight pieces I'd written, The Long And The Short Of It was the one I’d written off as a bad job. A no-frills tale of middle managers in a sales … Continue reading Body Parts And Coal Dust
Only two weeks into 2011 and already I've chalked up two rejection notices. The first came from esteemed sci-fi journal Asimov's and wasn't too big a shock. Sci-fi isn't my usual bag, but I'd written a story that had had a lot of positive feedback and figured it was worth the long shot. The other … Continue reading Doors closing, doors opening