Jonathan Dyer's Blog: The Nick Temple Files, page 10

The Olympics, Greeks, and the Nick Temple Files

The Summer Olympics are drawing to a close in Tokyo. I’ll be honest, I haven’t paid that much attention to them this time around. As usual, it looks like some amazing athletes performed superhuman acts, and some distant favorites came out on top. All great stuff, and I am resolved to keep a closer eye on them the next time around. In the meantime, I offer my one nod to the Olympics in the first five Nick Temple Files. Naturally, the scene is set in...

Editing and Proofing a Novel – The Details Matter

I’m an independent author. I self-publish my books. Although I have had five of my books released by publishers in the past, all of my books are now self-published. That means I alone am responsible for their content. There is no one to blame but me for anything between the covers of the book. In fact, I do the covers now too. The covers, front and back, and every page in between, have to be proofread and edited over and over again. The process o...

Progress Report on New Cold War Espionage ThrillerSchloss Heidelberg 1986

The summer has been a good one for making progress on The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6. I thought it would take me to the end of the year to finish a first draft. Now it’s looking like I could get there by the end of August. At this point, I’m under 19 thousand words to that goal, and I’ve been churning out about five thousand words a week.  Even though I’ve been writing for about 30 years, bursts of creativity ...

Politics and the Cold War Espionage ThrillerThe Death Zone of the Berlin Wall – Potsdamer Platz viewed from West Berlin

It’s an understatement to say that American political institutions are being challenged in ways the likes of which the living haven’t seen. Times are tough, uncertain, and getting more so. In addition to all of our other domestic conflicts, we are struggling with the physical and psychological effects of a deadly, once-in-a-lifetime, global emergency. The numbers of dead are s...

How Studying the Common Law Helps Fill in the Gaps in a Cold War Thriller’s PlotThe small marina at the US Army’s recreation center on the Wannsee

One role of a common law judge is to fill in the interstices left by elected representatives and statutory law, or so I was taught while studying the law. The idea is that it is impossible to think of every factual and legal circumstance prior to their happening and as a result gaps naturally occur in our codified law. When those gaps are exposed in ...

Two Novels in Progress and a New ResolveThe coast at Santa Barbara where my novel Requiem Lake begins

After a break of about five months, I’m writing again, trying to pick up where I left off in two different works. The break lasted longer than I thought it would. I assumed I’d restart the process shortly after January 1st, but, as they say, life got in the way. We sold the house we’d been living in for more than 25 years, bought another house, and moved half-way across the country. All of that...

A Heidelberg Gap Preview

Just for the hell of it, here’s a draft of Chapter 1 of my new Nick Temple File, The Heidelberg Gap. It will be the sixth title in the series. So far, so good. I passed 10,000 words yesterday, and feel like I’m hitting a productive stretch after some time away from the book. So here’s a taste. I hope it makes you want more! If you want to catch up with the series, click here for Nick Temple Files 1 through 5.

A mock-up of the cover for Nick Temple File no. 6

CHAPTER 1: I...

Uncles

My brother sent me the picture below this morning. It’s a picture of my father, the man on the far right, and his four brothers. It was taken in the late 1960s. As far as I know, it’s the last photograph of them all together as my Uncle Pete, the man seated in the middle, passed away shortly after this picture was taken. Getting this picture from my brother brought back many powerful, wonderful memories. I wrote a short piece about uncles a few years back when one of them died. Here it is...

The Old Man and the Tee

I’ve been giving leisure time a good deal of thought the last couple of years in anticipation of retirement. Given my age and other demographics, the game of golf came to mind and would not go away. When I was a kid, I used to go to a driving range with a friend of mine or with my dad and brother. I’d hit a bucket of balls using one of the clubs they had available at the shack where you paid for and got the balls. It was fun, especially on summer evenings when the range l...

More of My Poetry Published by The Writers Club

The Writers Club has published another poem of mine. This one, entitled “Resolve,” is a quick riff on conformity and adulthood, and it is below. This is the sixth poem of mine that they’ve published. I think it’s great that a platform like The Writers Club exists for all sorts of writing. It’s not only a great place for writers, it may be obvious that it’s also a great place for readers! Check out their extensive catalog of publications that includ...