Martin Brant's Blog
July 20, 2017
Typos
First let me say, when I read a book, I'm in it for the story. I love concise, flowing prose, but it's the characters and what they are up to that gets and holds my attention. Am I getting to know them? Do I care when they face their trials and tribulations? Is the story moving along and compelling?
An occasional misspelled word, or a misplaced comma, or "to" instead of "too" doesn't get my attention. But if one of these typos or misspellings does get my attention, they only serve to to make me glad to know I'm not the only author or editor that overlooks them from time to time.
I have great respect for those who are well-schooled in the rules of our language. It is helpful when my mistakes are pointed out by them; it gives me the desire to strive to catch my mistakes. What I am at odds with is the scholar that knocks a book's rating down a star or two because he or she noticed "there" spelled as "their".
So it's your money you spend on a book, and your time you spend reading it. If the book is flush with typos and errors, sure, take it apart in your review. But an occasional misspelling? Come on; even the sharpest editors miss one now and then.
An occasional misspelled word, or a misplaced comma, or "to" instead of "too" doesn't get my attention. But if one of these typos or misspellings does get my attention, they only serve to to make me glad to know I'm not the only author or editor that overlooks them from time to time.
I have great respect for those who are well-schooled in the rules of our language. It is helpful when my mistakes are pointed out by them; it gives me the desire to strive to catch my mistakes. What I am at odds with is the scholar that knocks a book's rating down a star or two because he or she noticed "there" spelled as "their".
So it's your money you spend on a book, and your time you spend reading it. If the book is flush with typos and errors, sure, take it apart in your review. But an occasional misspelling? Come on; even the sharpest editors miss one now and then.
July 17, 2017
Nudists of Goodreads
I would like to invite you to join my new group, Nudists of Goodreads. Here nudists, and prospective nudists, can recommend books in this genre, see recommended books, find out what nudist books are available and participate in polls and discussion about nudist experiences.
July 16, 2017
Youthful Secrets
Coming of age is a journey fraught with mysteries, questions and disappointments. Natalie escapes her travails on long walks through the forest and at her secret place where the creek widens into a pool. One day she happens upon a boy that has discovered her secret place, and her world suddenly changes.Hiding from sight in the undergrowth, she watches the boy swim, wearing nothing but the skin he was born in. Messmerized, she can't tear herself away. As she watches some of the things boys do when they think no one is around, her stunned surprise evolves into enchantment.
When the day comes they cross paths again in the clearing, an awkward friendship develops. Natalie asks why he swims naked, learns the boy and his entire family are nudists. From that moment forward, Natalie's life is never again the same. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DQGADR0
Social Nudity
Most people still believe being nude around other people has to be the most appalling experience imaginable on God's green earth. On the other side of the coin, many people are intrigued, or have already stuck their toe in the water in some form or another.
Even curious people are reluctant to try social nudity. They have body issues: their butts are too wide, their breasts are too small or large, their penises are too small, they have an unsightly scar or cellulite, they're too hairy. Plus they have been indoctrinated. The human body is indecent. Nudity is part of a sexual situation. Just look what happened when Janet Jackson's nipple was exposed for a tenth of a second during a Superbowl halftime show.
But for many, none of those things apply. Consider the multitudes who show up to be photographed nude at a Spenser Tunick photo shoot; or the masses that materialize at the World Naked Bike Rides held in various cities around the world. Consider the growing popularity of nude vacations at nudist resorts, or nude cruises where as many as three thousand people never wear a stitch of clothes for a week at sea.
None of these people associate nudity with sex or what might be construed as shameful, indecent or lewd. They have discovered the joy, the enlightened exhilaration, the freedom of adding a new dimension to their lives.
This year I have started a series called the "Nudist Series". These tales are about people that embrace the nudist lifestyle, or people that, one way or another, are introduced to it. If the thought of taking your clothes off with like-minded friends makes you smile, I hope you give my stories a try. It will give you a chance to walk in the character's shoes and see what it is like.
Even curious people are reluctant to try social nudity. They have body issues: their butts are too wide, their breasts are too small or large, their penises are too small, they have an unsightly scar or cellulite, they're too hairy. Plus they have been indoctrinated. The human body is indecent. Nudity is part of a sexual situation. Just look what happened when Janet Jackson's nipple was exposed for a tenth of a second during a Superbowl halftime show.
But for many, none of those things apply. Consider the multitudes who show up to be photographed nude at a Spenser Tunick photo shoot; or the masses that materialize at the World Naked Bike Rides held in various cities around the world. Consider the growing popularity of nude vacations at nudist resorts, or nude cruises where as many as three thousand people never wear a stitch of clothes for a week at sea.
None of these people associate nudity with sex or what might be construed as shameful, indecent or lewd. They have discovered the joy, the enlightened exhilaration, the freedom of adding a new dimension to their lives.
This year I have started a series called the "Nudist Series". These tales are about people that embrace the nudist lifestyle, or people that, one way or another, are introduced to it. If the thought of taking your clothes off with like-minded friends makes you smile, I hope you give my stories a try. It will give you a chance to walk in the character's shoes and see what it is like.
July 8, 2011
First Person vs Omnipresent
As a writer it has always seemed to me that writing a book in first person would be the most difficult form of narration. I felt each important character should have the ability to express their thoughts through the narrator in order to present a more rounded, better told story.
Nevertheless, I decided to write my latest novel in first person. Jonathon Scott, the main character, tells the story. He's a hapless 32 year old pharmacist at odds with his sexuality and convinced something is wrong with him. After all, it's 1954; men are supposed to be men.
So it's from his perspective the tale is told, a perspective I had a lot of fun with. After his wife catches him in the shower with another man and divorces him, his life feels a lot like a leaf carried on a fast moving stream. As he tries to engineer an new destiny, circumstances always get in the way.
He talks about his plans to relocate on the Gulf Coast, his adventure through the deep south in his 1948 Ford, his dream of warm coastal beaches and a new life in Biloxi, Mississippi; that if he could only meet the right woman, his misguided urges would be cured. Those he meets along the way, becomes involved we, the reader learns about them through his eyes.
The story is also in present tense, which for me not only added to the challenge, but also the fun. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I think my next tale will told in first person.
Copperas Cove
Nevertheless, I decided to write my latest novel in first person. Jonathon Scott, the main character, tells the story. He's a hapless 32 year old pharmacist at odds with his sexuality and convinced something is wrong with him. After all, it's 1954; men are supposed to be men.
So it's from his perspective the tale is told, a perspective I had a lot of fun with. After his wife catches him in the shower with another man and divorces him, his life feels a lot like a leaf carried on a fast moving stream. As he tries to engineer an new destiny, circumstances always get in the way.
He talks about his plans to relocate on the Gulf Coast, his adventure through the deep south in his 1948 Ford, his dream of warm coastal beaches and a new life in Biloxi, Mississippi; that if he could only meet the right woman, his misguided urges would be cured. Those he meets along the way, becomes involved we, the reader learns about them through his eyes.
The story is also in present tense, which for me not only added to the challenge, but also the fun. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I think my next tale will told in first person.
Copperas Cove
July 4, 2011
Copperas Cove
Jonathon’s marriage crashes around his head when his wife catches him in the shower with another man. He leaves Pittsburgh to start a new life on the Gulf coast. Followed by phantoms from the past, he sets out envisioning blissful solitude and long lazy Saturdays on warm southern beaches. Maybe he can find a drugstore in Biloxi that needs a pharmacist. Maybe, if he meets the right woman, he can get these misguided notions about men out of his head.
The generator on his ’48 Ford coupe goes out fifty miles south of Tupelo, a long hot three mile walk to the next town, an isolated hamlet called Copperas Cove. Temporarily stranded, he finds himself having a hamburger at Rexall soda fountain, unaware that his destiny is taking shape in the mind of a young woman three stools down. Betty Marie, the quixotic town flirt, has taken an interest in him. Jonathon soon learns, if he’s looking for a job as a pharmacist, he came to the right place. Old man Peterson, the Rexall’s ancient pharmacist, has been wanting to retire for years Betty Marie quickly points out, that other than a beach, they don’t have anything in Biloxi he can’t find right here in Copperas Cove.
Simpler times in another era. An age old dilemma. A small town in the deep south. A brutal rape and murder. An exiled husband facing life-changing events. The bigoted dramas of 1950’s Mississippi. Ingredients all for a witches brew of emotion, mystery and intrigue. Copperas Cove weaves an unpredictable thread through the lives of all concerned, a thread that leaves no one unchanged.
Copperas Cove
July 2, 2011
Male Sexuality in Fiction
What does male sexuality have to do with Martin Brant Novels?
Within the general brotherhood of man, concerning male sexuality, a significant percentage of men live with a closely guarded secret. More common than most people think, these men are dealing a same sex attraction. Most people, other than those they may have shared their secret with, don’t realize how many men have some degree of sexual attraction to other men. Contrary to most moral codes and various religious beliefs, these feelings are quite common and natural. They are feelings that number among the human emotions I deal with through the characters in my novels.
A writer’s first priority, mine included, is to tell a good story. Any writer worth his or her salt wants to create a thoughtfully written story and entertain those who read his or her work. It could be a murder mystery like my latest novel, Copperas Cove, where Jonathon Scott, recently divorced, leaves Pittsburg to start a new life and finds himself entangled in the bigoted dramas of 1950s Mississippi; or a WWII action/adventure like The Partisans, where two men on an important mission in France stumple upon a bright new future; or a tale of romance like A Song in the Park, where two men at odds with their past cross paths and start facing life’s challenges together. Good stories have characters and characters have personalities, personalities that are very much a part of the whole and make for a more intriguing book. Often the character’s personality can be a story within a story, or it can be the story itself, as in books such as Catcher in the Rye, or my first novel Five Married Men.
Why the element of same sex attraction?
For me it’s a fascination with the vast diversity of human nature. It’s a part of the human race that, for various reasons, many don’t understand. Many of us have been indoctrinated to belief there is something wrong with being attracted to a member of our own sex, which includes the majority of those who are. These are the men who keep secrets, who often feel guilty, who somehow believe there is something wrong with them. Though you may not feel attracted to members of your own sex, you know someone who does. It may be your bother or sister, your neighbor or a colleague at work, your cousin or best friend; it may even be your husband or wife. And chances are you don’t know their secret exists.
Considered a blessing or a curse, or both, the degree of same sex attraction varies from one man to the next; from a mild curiosity that leaves him feeling either guilty or warm inside, to a full blown and exclusive attraction to one’s own sex. Though the same holds true for both men and women, my focus and my novels are about men (and the women in their lives). And for some reason, same sex attractions seem more prevalent in men, though it is also considered by many as more unnatural and less acceptable.
So why would an author that wants to write a compelling mainstream tale include characters with a same sex attraction? Maybe I believe human sexuality in itself is compelling. Maybe, through my novels, I would like to help broaden human understanding. Maybe a part of me wants to say it’s okay.
Within the general brotherhood of man, concerning male sexuality, a significant percentage of men live with a closely guarded secret. More common than most people think, these men are dealing a same sex attraction. Most people, other than those they may have shared their secret with, don’t realize how many men have some degree of sexual attraction to other men. Contrary to most moral codes and various religious beliefs, these feelings are quite common and natural. They are feelings that number among the human emotions I deal with through the characters in my novels.
A writer’s first priority, mine included, is to tell a good story. Any writer worth his or her salt wants to create a thoughtfully written story and entertain those who read his or her work. It could be a murder mystery like my latest novel, Copperas Cove, where Jonathon Scott, recently divorced, leaves Pittsburg to start a new life and finds himself entangled in the bigoted dramas of 1950s Mississippi; or a WWII action/adventure like The Partisans, where two men on an important mission in France stumple upon a bright new future; or a tale of romance like A Song in the Park, where two men at odds with their past cross paths and start facing life’s challenges together. Good stories have characters and characters have personalities, personalities that are very much a part of the whole and make for a more intriguing book. Often the character’s personality can be a story within a story, or it can be the story itself, as in books such as Catcher in the Rye, or my first novel Five Married Men.
Why the element of same sex attraction?
For me it’s a fascination with the vast diversity of human nature. It’s a part of the human race that, for various reasons, many don’t understand. Many of us have been indoctrinated to belief there is something wrong with being attracted to a member of our own sex, which includes the majority of those who are. These are the men who keep secrets, who often feel guilty, who somehow believe there is something wrong with them. Though you may not feel attracted to members of your own sex, you know someone who does. It may be your bother or sister, your neighbor or a colleague at work, your cousin or best friend; it may even be your husband or wife. And chances are you don’t know their secret exists.
Considered a blessing or a curse, or both, the degree of same sex attraction varies from one man to the next; from a mild curiosity that leaves him feeling either guilty or warm inside, to a full blown and exclusive attraction to one’s own sex. Though the same holds true for both men and women, my focus and my novels are about men (and the women in their lives). And for some reason, same sex attractions seem more prevalent in men, though it is also considered by many as more unnatural and less acceptable.
So why would an author that wants to write a compelling mainstream tale include characters with a same sex attraction? Maybe I believe human sexuality in itself is compelling. Maybe, through my novels, I would like to help broaden human understanding. Maybe a part of me wants to say it’s okay.
