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

An Existential Thanksgiving on the Fictional Caribbean Island of Santa Clara

An Existential Thanksgiving on the Fictional Caribbean Island of Santa Clara

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. The origin story of the holiday is rightly suspect, but what I like about it is generally what is not present. There isn’t any weird pretend creature – think North Pole elf or a large candy-hiding rabbit – and the decorations, such as they are, are generally de minimis. No one is forced to buy or accept a gift they either can’t afford or don’t want. If you’re fortunate enou...

My Screenplay, The Bonus Army, Gets A Read Thanks to One Man’s Veterans Day Generosity

My Screenplay, The Bonus Army, Gets A Read Thanks to One Man’s Veterans Day GenerosityJonathan Dyer’s Screenplays

On Thursday, November 11th, Kyle F. Andrews, an experienced script analyst, made an offer via Twitter to veterans who have written a script. The offer was this: if you’re a veteran, send him a title, genre, and logline of a script you’ve written. He’d pick three of those submitted, read the scripts, and analyze them, all at no cost to the veterans/screenwriters. He even enlisted two...

Paperback Version of The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6, Released

Paperback Version of The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6, Released

Another quick note: I released the paperback version of The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6 yesterday. It’s now available on Amazon as an eBook and a paperback.

The latest entry in the Nick Temple File series finds Nick in Heidelberg, Germany during the summer of 1968. Just across the border in Czechoslovakia, ordinary Czech citizens are clamoring for freedom. The tension builds as the Soviet Union contemplates a br...

Nick Temple File no. 6 EBook Released

The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6 Released

A quick note: I released The Heidelberg Gap, Nick Temple File no. 6 yesterday. It’s currently available on Amazon as an eBook. The paperback will be available in another two weeks, more or less.

Each book in the series has presented its own challenges, and The Heidelberg Gap is no different in that regard. I started writing it in the summer of 2020, during a time of ridiculous uncertainty for all of us. By earlier this year, with less than 1/3 ...

The Olympics, Greeks, and the Nick Temple Files

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

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 Thriller

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 Thriller

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...

The Common Law, a Cold War Thriller’s Plot, and a Story’s Interstices

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 ...

Writing Again after a Five-Month Hiatus

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...