To Beard or not To Beard...

Beards... they are everywhere, and the trend has come back with full force. 
But why?

Hipsters. Walking down the street looking clean-cut, apart from this unruly protrusion foresting from their chin. Red-haired or blonde, they don't care. They want the world to see it.

For the Hipster, this is his growth-trophy. For the onlooker, this is a trend nightmare that makes you want to grab them, pin them down and shave them. You know that one day they will look back at those pics of themselves, when they were once full beard, and say "What was I thinking?"

The real question is; why can't that day be today?

Of course most men look upon this as a challenge. Most men have let that wildness overtake them, but another thing to consider is does a beard make you better?

Let's go back in time, the great beards of history, men of influence that will make you wonder will the beard make a difference.

I could sprout off a lot of names here; Otto the Great (wiki that shiznaz), Leo Tolstoy, Will Shakespeare, Abe Lincoln, Darwin, etc, but these are random figures through history, not all of them well-off but there beards seeming more of an expression rather than a statement. If we look at King George the V, here is where we see the "Class meets core man" or "Style meets savage," or even "aristocrat meets aristocat."

For certain these are influential figures, but did the beard do it? Was it the beard that wrote War & Peace? Hamlet? Look at how many great figures have contributed to the changing of the world without facial hair to shield them; Churchill, Washington, Mandela, Elvis, Schwarzenegger... 

On the other side of the spectrum are the so-called villains of bearded society; Charles Manson, Rasputin, Che Guevara, Colonel Sanders, Osama Bin Laden - let's be honest, no one was beard crazy during 9/11. Did having a beard influence their decision making? Religiously, you could argue that Osama seemed to think so.

Psychologically, it has nothing to do with the beard, scientists say. It has to do with the confidence of having accomplished something. At it's raw essential, to grow a big beard is to become a manly figure, an achievement of non-conformism as everyone tells you to shave said beard, it proves you have the control of whether the beard comes or goes. 

You keep it, and it's a choice.

You shave it, and you are a conforming, but now it's so popular, you have to have one to fit in with your group of bearded villains.

People can shun you, call you unruly, laugh when there is food left behind, but they can't really take it away from you. It's your trophy, and in a world where only a small handful of people do something that truly matters, this is important to a man's soul. Man must accomplish something in his life, even if it is as trivial as letting your hair grow. 

Why has the trend come back? Who truly knows, but take comfort in knowing that a beard does not make the man.

- James K. B. Brough

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How do incomplete books / novels become rich & famous?

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We've seen it happen over a dozen times; books that do not even have an ending are taking over the world commercially.

Harry Potter was already a film before the release of the final book. The (gulp) Twilight saga. Game of Thrones (which can take up to an epic five years per release of each novel). The 100.

The real question is; why are we investing in a series that we do not know the ending?
The answer: marketing and producers don't care about how your precious series ends.

Yes, it's about money. Creating hype for your series is what's important, and who loves hype better than a novelist and backing publisher who stand to make millions from this?

I was guest at a book reading club a few years ago, and at the time I was in Part 3 of my 5 Part series Save the World Academy. One of the women at the club blatantly refused to read my series as she didn't feel it was "complete." (-which my series is complete now BTW). But this same woman was also on the pre-order list for the final Twilight book. What makes Twilight more special? Perhaps a movie and young teens going ballistic makes someone invest more in a series.

People are sheep.
We as people can't wait for the next Game of Thrones episode (or book), but as individuals we realise we just don't care.

Media Hype means everyone gets on board. Marketing feeds us the latest phenomenon. And we don't get a choice. In the beginning Harry Potter was a quaint little bed time story for kids, and word got spread around. Then someone with money saw their child reading it and realised it had a market.

Another truth is; Every book has a Market.

Every series has an audience. Even badly edited material can drag in the hundreds of thousands as long as it is marketed correctly. It's a TV nation out there. Had anyone even heard of Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, The 100 before it was a TV series or movie? In fact the only book I can consider as a media frenzy before the release of the film is the overly bloated 50 Shades of Grey.

Television is perhaps the most powerful medium on the planet. All writers know this, and they also know to write drivel that gets thrown on television is a literary sin. Selling out to commercialism. Only greats like Tolkien and Twain reserve the right to fame before the screen. And until your book is in the hands of producers, enjoy the art of creating your own world. Because that's what it's all about.

Check out my complete series here: www.jamesbrough.com

My man is a baby... why women think men should grow up.

So you're a woman.

You walk in to your apartment/house to find your husband/boyfriend playing videogames/watching cartoons.

"Oh my god, he's dragging me to another Avengers movie."
"If I see one more movie about planets that don't exist I will kill myself."
"Avatar. What a pile of crap." "Star Wars... ridiculous...."

Does this sound familiar?

And the obvious conclusion becomes this:

"Why won't my boyfriend/husband grow up?"

ANSWER: He isn't acting like a child. He doesn't need to grow up at all.

#Shock# you say. #Horror# I hear.

When Bob Kane first created Batman he was in his mid twenties. Along with Seigel and Schuster (Superman). Walt Disney was in his late thirties to early forties when he conceived Disney Land. Stan Lee was in his forties when he was Art Director on Marvel titles (X-men, Fantastic Four, Spider-man).

The point is this: Ladies, you are in the belief system that your husband/boyfriend is trapped in some Peter Pan complex when the simple truth is that there is no Peter Pan complex. All this material that is supposedly designed "for children" is created by adults. Children don't create these works of art. Adults do. Highly respected, well paid artists. I think some of the youngest, biggest talent to emerge in the comic/graphic world (Joe Mad - one of my personal heroes) were in there late teens to twenties regardless and are growing and still making an excellent career for their obsession with escapism. Because that's what it is. It's not about "only kids will like this." Have you even seen Ninja Scroll or Cowboy Bebop? It's about Art. Escapism in Art. Their is nothing childish in that.

Next point is: wouldn't you rather see your husband/boyfriend reading a comic or playing a game then lying to you and going off somewhere with his mates doing who knows what?
Do men ever say to women: "Stop painting your face with crayons and grow up."

No.

Men aren't babies. What's more childish is looking for drama where there needn't be drama.
As men; We need escape. We need Turtles. We need Batman. And you need us to need these things.

Check out my books at www.jamesbrough.com

 -- James