Writing

How to overcome writer’s block As I know many Vandal readers are writers, I know they will understand when I say that there are times when the words just get stuck. Some call it writer’s block, but it’s only a moment in a story when your ideas dry up or you feel that the story…

It seems like just yesterday It’s easy to take things for granted, but it really isn’t so long ago that there was no Internet and faxes were the coolest communication tool going. Growing up in a small city stuck on the far west coast or Australia, it’s also easy to remember a one newspaper town,…

The world is full of typos! While reading two separate posts on Forbes and The Verge in the last two days regarding the annoyance of typos in e-books, it was reassuring in some respects to note that the brunt of the complaints was against large publishers. However, as I read the long list of comments on these…

Words create magic, even only a few. These two words create magic – Khe Sanh. It is the title of a song made popular by an Australian band, Cold Chisel, and the song has become an anthem for two generations. It is sometimes said in Australia that when babies are born, their DNA carry the words to…

Authors and writers beware! While it has been a long-held wisdom that commenting on relevant book related sites and blogs can be useful in building an online presence and promoting your author brand, I have to warn you of a trap I fell headlong into last week. When I came across a short story post, written…

Dead Men Evolution hasn’t made a lot of difference as far as men are concerned. The end of the chase has changed little over the eons, as he drags his woman back to his cave in the belief he needs to spread his genes. When she rebuffs his advances, he resorts immediately to violence and…