Latest Articles from The Vandal AKA Derek Haines

The Longest Sentence In English

How long can one sentence be? For some odd reason, I started searching for the longest sentence ever written in English and was amazed to find that in fact, a sentence of 469,375.2 words was actually written by Nigel Tomm in a book titled The Blah Story that had twenty-three different covers, which must surely be a record for covers and words, although I’m absolutely perplexed as to what would constitute a word that would only count as point two of a word as a word is a word and any reduction would have to be classed as a suffix or abbreviation or perhaps an acronym but one could surmise that his over-use of

People Don’t Take The Time To Read Anymore

Reading is a lost art, and so is comprehending. I know people don’t read because what I write is so often misunderstood, misconstrued or more often than not, ignored. All people read are headlines or titles, but rarely the text. Worse, though, is that people who only read headlines are very fast to the keyboard to make a judgement, complain, boast or deride. Okay, I am making a generalisation here. However, I will give you a clear example of what people do and do not read. Some time ago, I wrote a post about the poor use of grammar by some writers. The title of my post was, Writters Who Should

The Passing Of Maria

For Maria For those who have read my book Louis, you will recall one of the main characters, Medeia. In reality, she was a wonderful, courageous and charming woman, whose real name was Maria. She was the wife of Louis and her passing at the age of ninety-nine now closes the final chapter on her life and that of Louis. Louis was a spy and man of many secrets, and to her last day, Maria kept those secrets safe. Although her role in the book differs slightly to her real life, many aspects were true. She was born in Greece and met Louis in Africa. While still a mystery as to how

How To Make Your Book A Bestseller

A tongue in cheek approach to bestseller status Every author wants their book to rise above the slush pile, the mid-list and into the top ten of bestsellers. Why even settle for the top ten. Why not go straight for number one? However, it is quite surprising how few know how to achieve this simple feat. Really, it’s child’s play if you follow the following useful tips to make your book, no matter how good or long it is, a number one bestseller. 1. First, make sure you’ve actually written a book. Amazing how many potential bestselling authors miss this first step. 2. Too simple for some, but rule 101