We Built This City, But Not On Rock And Roll

We Built This City: According to the US and World Census Population Clocks, there are well over 7 billion people in the world today, with about 320 million in the U.S (the third most populated country). Here in North America, there is one birth every eight seconds, one death every twelve seconds, and one new migrant every 38 seconds. The world population is expected to reach 8 billion people in 2024. Reference 

How are so many people to find adequate housing, food, clothing, healthcare, etc on a planet with limited resources? Let’s face it. Major cities around the globe were not designed to handle the demands of 21st century life and the mass influx of more people, let alone what the surprises the next 100 years holds. 

What To Do? There are lots of amazing ideas on Cities Of The Future that I’ll be posting right here on Thursday November 20th. But here is one idea that is brilliant in its simplicity. 

Artist's Version of City of Lusail

Example: Qatar (part of the oil rich United Arab Emirates) is planning on building a city from the ground up. Cost? A mere 45 billion dollars. 

The planned city, called Lusail, will cover about 30 square miles along the Persian Gulf and accommodate 250,000 people. It’s been referred to a very large five star hotel. Lusail will include marinas, residential areas, island resorts, commercial districts, luxury shopping and leisure facilities, including two golf courses, an all giraffe zoo and an entertainment district. 

Lusail Stadium to Host 2022 FIFA World Cup

As the venue for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, the Lusail Iconic Stadium will provide a world-class football facility for 86,250 spectators during the opening ceremony, group games and final. Reflecting Doha’s culture and heritage, the stadium is designed to be highly energy efficient and capable of performing in extreme summer climatic conditions. (Folks, this is a complete city built from scratch!!!)

Reference 

Reference 

Can We Do It? Of course we can. The politicians of California are trying to raise money for a High Speed Rail system that would be expected to easily exceed $45B. So money really isn’t the issue here. 

No Caption Needed for the Renaissance City

Problem: Once a city like this is built, it has to be maintained. That means, the citizens cannot let it go to hell or riot and burn it down. In Qatar, known for its gross human rights violations, they will simply make trouble makers disappear. In Japan, their citizens desire to build a progressive city where the citizens can thrive and continue building for the future, such as what they did with Hiroshima after it was nuked at the end of World War II. 

However: here in the United States things are different. Even if we raze existing entire sections of a major city and build from scratch, would we as a civilization be able to maintain, or would they simply crumble back into what we now see in many sections of our inner cities? 

Question: Should countries, states, and communities raise money to build new cities from scratch to replace what clearly needs to be replaced? 

I’ll leave you with some really cool pics of Hiroshima today to give you a bit of vision. 

Stephen Tremp, author of the BREAKTHROUGH series, is finishing his fourth book titled Murcat Manor. You can visit Stephen at Breakthrough Blogs.

Storyteller's Perspective: Matters of Life and Death

I joined a group of friends last week to go and see The Book of Life, a new animated movie for the Halloween season directed by Jorge Gutierrez and produced by Guillermo del Toro. Most preliminary reviews I read said that the visuals were absolutely stunning, but the story left some to be desired.
As a storyteller, I beg to differ.

One definitely positive point about this movie is diversity - it introduces kids to a different culture and its colors, its words, its mythology, and its festivities. In the past years Día de los Muertos has often been added to Halloween as if they were the same thing - and they are definitely not. In fact, there has been a lot of discussion around cultural appropriation, and turning a serious, religious holiday from another culture into Halloween party make-up. The movie, while it definitely does not solve the entire problem, did add a very clear, colorful, and original voice to it.



Second: It is about storytelling.
And it is also about death.
The death of loved ones, family members, and ultimately, yourself.
Dark enough for kids yet?
You bet.

One thing storytellers these days have to struggle with is the increasing pressure from parents and educators to avoid all "sensitive topics" - among others, death. We are often asked, or even required, to avoid all casualties in our folktales; even villains have to repent and walk off into the sunset instead of dying in the end. While I definitely see where the people asking us are coming from, it is important to know that their request does not make sense.

As a storyteller, I have had more kids complain that the monster or the villain lived in the end than how many parents asked me not to do it. And not because kids wanted to revel in gore and violence. They simply did not feel safe, and they were anxious for the heroes: What if the wicked witch returns? What if the boogeyman is not really dead? Kids think of death as closure, and as long as a menace is not eliminated, the story does not come to a satisfying happy end.
Now, making said end child-friendly is the storyteller's work; it does not have to sound like a play-by-play from last week's episode of The Walking Dead. BUT there is also no reason why we should avoid the mentioning of death.
Death is something we all live with. It happens. Everywhere. To everyone. And if we never tell stories that psychologically prepare children for dealing with its presence, they will have a lot harder time adjusting to it later on in life. There are many, many stories - funny stories, tricky stories, creepy stories, even stories with happy endings - that talk about death in ways that are accessible and comforting to children.

Much like The Book of Life does.

Quoting Neil Gaiman:

“If you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up.”

For the end, here is an animated short about Día de los Muertos that has been going around on the Internet lately. Lovely, lovely piece.

As usual, you can find @ TarkabarkaHolgy at:
The Multicolored Diary - Adventures in Storytelling
MopDog - The crazy thing about Hungarians

Four Reasons I Do National Novel Writing Month

This month I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which if you haven't heard of it, is National Novel Writing Month. One signs up at the site  nanowrimo.org  and writes 50,000 words during the month of November. I'm on a good start this year and wanted to share with you why I do this and how it can impact anything you write, be that a blog, short stories, novels, non-fiction, etc.


The first major benefit in participating, in my opinion, is that you write every day no matter what, no matter how much.
Second, it can teach you how to outline, because if you outline you have a road map for those 50,000 words so if you get lost or sidetracked, you can get back on track easily. I did that for the first time last year and it literally saved me. I ended up doing 70,000 words. I don't like outlining, but now I'm a convert.
Third, you learn, if you don't know already, how to write a first draft WITHOUT EDITING AS YOU GO. This is so important for anyone writing anything. To get it down while it's fresh in your mind and unsullied by your inner editor gives you more wiggle room when you move on to the second draft.
Fourth reason is, if you are new to writing, you will learn what it really means to write EVERY DAY. If you are seasoned veteran, you will find that the freedom of allowing your thoughts to freely roam while your fingers take dictation is addicting. Each day watching that word count rise keeps the brain high as a kite with not only a sense of accomplishment, but also a joy in allowing yourself to write for whatever reasons you have chosen to write.
I don't need more than four reasons to do NaNo, because these four are good and critical no matter what I write. Imagine how many blog posts you could get done in one month (you AtoZer's know what I mean)! If you're going to participate in A to Z next year, you could get them all done with some to spare (30 compared to 26)! One participant I know will be writing ten short stories this month. I'm working on a memoir. Use your imagination!That's what NaNo is all about.

If you're doing NaNo, what are your reasons? If not, why not? Thanks for stopping by!

Images from:
www.grammarly.com
www.examiner.com
writerswin.com