Avatar for Nick VDL

Nick VDL

not yet ranked

first registered 15.05.09

last online 8 days ago

report abuse
about me

Let's swap. Get spamming.

South Africa based freelance photojournalist, blogger and new media strategist. While I have been published extensively in magazines and newspapers, my goal is to publish a fine script and/or novel. I have numerous works in progress and works finished, and am particularly keen to have my writing converted into filmscripts.

Follow me on twitter @nickvdl

favourite books

Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones
Cormac McCarthy's The Road
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code
John Krakauer's Into the Wild
James R. Hansen's First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
Robert Mckee's Story
As a child: Enid Blyton's books

my websites

http://www.nickvanderleek.com     http://www.vdleek.blogspot.com

HarperCollins is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Self-publish with CreateSpace

my books

The Devil Smokes Dunhill

Nick van der Leek

The media is mad.


The mainstream media from the inside, is a cesspool of insecure misfits, and courtyard keepers. Everyone suffers from chronic attention deficit disorder. Everyone is addicted to something. Words are their weapons of choice, life an after-thought, terminal diseases - especially cancers, tumors and anal brown-nosing - a certainty. Nick van der Leek, in this brilliant satire, uncovers the real story behind who and what makes the media, and suggests we stop caring. The folks who work tirelessly behind the scenes, splattering bullshit on the front pages of newspapers - the sub-editors, journalists [suckers], the cubicle slaves and other subhuman characters - do they know what they're doing? In a word: Hell no.
We live in a world where the news today is indistinguishable from spam, and spam [according to Wikipedia]'provides very little in terms of vitamins and minerals...it has been listed as a food that is a poor choice for weight loss and optimum health and as a food that "is high in saturated fat and sodium".' The news, the people responsible for writing it, editing it and stupid enough to read it get skewered in this devilish yarn.

 

HOLIDAY

Nick van der Leek

Hugh van Lewen witnesses the heat and exhaustion of a warming world and then, the inexorable wilting of life.


In this world there are no more patterns. There’s just chaos.

Hugh van Lewen, an ESL teacher working in South Korea, travels to the Philippines for some R&R. Instead he walks off the plane into a sizzling storm. But the aftermath of the storm propels him into a world of Rapid Onset Climate Change. The islands are swallowed by rising waters as he tries to leave...but the problems on the world's mainlands have just begun.

This is a 'Climate Thriller' influenced by Cormac McCarthy's The Road, though not quite as dark or bleak. The star of the show is the planet's climate which rapidly deteriorates, propelling the characters, Hugh and Stella (a 30-something man and a teenage sidekick) through a panorama of increasing troubles and chaos. Their flight takes in the islands of North Palawan in the Philippines, Singapore, the East Coast of Africa, Madagascar and South Africa, where the story culminates.

It is a grim tale which addresses our failure to appreciate reality and to see things as they are rather than as we wish they were.

 

Heaven Is In Your Heart

Nick van der Leek

About death. A mother returns to earth as a ghost and longs to speak to her son who is still alive.


A story of letting go. A dead woman attempts to break loose from the demands of heaven (and purgatory) for time with her son. She gets better at breaking the bonds of heaven, but realises as her understanding grows, how heartbreaking the reality of life going on must be for the dead and living alike.

 

Half Full Moon

Nick van der Leek

Poverty is the West. Wealth is in nature, even in the desert of the Kalahari, the desert of the Real.


The story of a man’s journey into the desert wilderness of the most endangered people on Earth – the Kalahari Bushman. He discovers that in order to be rescued himself, he has to undertake a rescue for these people, and to survive himself, he must find the courage and confidence to step beyond all he knows, and do what he has never done before.

 

my friends

adrylong
adrylong
last online 225 days ago
Mindbomber
Mindbomber
last online 355 days ago

leave me a message

click here to leave a message

latest

kristylo wrote 8 days ago

HELLO, How are you today.my name is kristy,i saw your profile today ....

ndaye wrote 230 days ago

(rafica_4ndaye@yahoo.com) My name is rafica i saw your profile toda....

K.C. Hart wrote 387 days ago

Nick, Any of Summer Rose. Caroline

Pat Black wrote 387 days ago

A quick look at Snarl would be much appreciated P

Neville wrote 387 days ago

Hi Nick, will take a look at your book friend. Could you put my book....

view all

my comments

latest

I wrote 388 days ago

anyone want to do a read/swap? view book

I wrote 388 days ago

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback CP. view book

I wrote 388 days ago

You're right, I probably need to be quite clear from the word go that this is a rant against the media. And an attempt to poke them in the eye with a book. view book

I wrote 388 days ago

Thanks very much for your comment Andrew, astute I think, and encouraging. view book

I wrote 946 days ago

The idea was to humiliate me and to discourage further effort. It was also to clearly establish that anything that would get written had to go through the gateway of the all knowing, all seeing, always right editor. Yes, it had nothing to do with how good or relevant or effective the copy was.... view book

view all