At the beginning of the 1848 Gold Rush, Sam Brannan, who owned a general store in Sutter's Fort, discovered that John Sutter and James Marshall had discovered gold. Understandably, the discoverers wanted to keep the strike a secret. Brannan agreed, then quietly scoured northern California buying up every shovel, pick and pan he could find until he had cornered the market.
He then went around town yelling, "We found gold!" and the Gold Rush was on. Hundreds of people flocked to northern California, all needing shovels, picks and pans to search for gold. And there was Sam, the only source for hundreds of miles around! Sam Brannan never lifted a shovel, never swung a pick, never shifted a pan in the search for gold, but he became the first millionaire of the Gold Rush -- selling shovels.
COMMODITIES PROFITS AND THE INTERNATIONAL APPROACH There is often more than one way to profit from commodities. Money can be made not only by betting on the need for resources, but on the processing and transporting of those resources. Remember that futures trading is global. Creative thinking requires that you consider the need for resources in one part of the world and probable suppliers and processors who may be located in other parts of the world.
In thinking creatively about commodity futures markets, factor in the following and see where it leads you: 1. Population
We are at the start of what is expected to be the greatest explosion in population growth in human history. The United Nations estimates that world population will increase by 1 billion people per decade for the first five decades of the 21st century. That means that the number of people on our planet will increase from 6.5 billion today to 9 billion by 2050. Population growth has become exponential.
In the 19th century it took 130 years to add 1 billion lives to the planet. Barely 200 years later in the 21st century, it takes just 13 years. More people means greater demand for natural resources (i.e., commodities). Greater demand means rising commodity prices.
2. Urbanization
People need a place to live and are increasingly being lured to cities where the bulk of the world's jobs can be found. The exponential growth in population is being accompanied by the greatest increase in urban development the world has ever seen. In the early 20th century, less than 15 percent of the world's population lived in cities, according to United Nations statistics. In 2005, a full one-half of the world's population lived in cities. By 2030, the U.N. predicts that 60 percent of the world's people will be crowded into cities.
People in urban areas consume more natural resources than those in rural areas where life is more sustainable. As urban areas expand, more natural resources and industrial metals will be needed to provide the necessary infrastructure: houses, roads, buildings, cars, hospitals, schools, etc. Whereas cities may have been initially located near plentiful natural resources, the mega-cities of the future may require resources from across the globe.
3. Industrialization In the 19th century, the first industrial revolution transformed Western Europe and North America. While industrialization has slowly been creeping across the globe during the past century, we are now poised for a second major industrial revolution in what are called the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. The need for natural resources in these countries is enormous and rising fast, pushing up commodity prices as demand rises.
Over the next few decades, China is expected to become the world's largest consumer of commodities. Of total world production in 2004, China used one-half the cement; one-third of the steel; one-quarter of the copper and one-fifth of the aluminum. China was also second only to America in oil consumption.
Before you can get your fantasy world to come alive in your readers mind you have to first get it to come alive in your own mind. It has to be tangible and real. And you have to see it before you can expect your reader to see it. So how do you do this? I have three suggested methods for bringing your vision of a world to life.
Draw maps of your world If you read a lot of epic fantasy chances are you have looked at the maps that come with many of these books. They are a wonderful addition to the writing. They bring a visual reality to the world contained in the novel and they are not an afterthought to the novel. They are a valuable part of the novel reading experience. Maps are not just for the reader though. They can serve a very useful function to you as a writer. Chances are good that your main character or main characters have to travel around the world you have created. Where are the rivers? How far apart are the cities and towns? What are the main features of the landscape? Are there mountains? How long would it take your character to walk from one place in the world to another place in the world. A good map can help you answer all these questions.
Too often maps are almost an afterthought. The story is written and then the map is drawn to fit the story. You should turn this approach on it’s head and draw the maps early in the writing process.
A map or even a series of maps can ground your story in a sense of reality. It can also spur new ideas in the story. The visual layout of a map can bring out new ideas. Does the map feel like it is missing something. Does it feel natural for a lake to be at the base of a mountain? Draw it in and see if it brings a new chapter to your story. Are there two rivers that meet? What should be at this meeting point? Is there a city? Maybe there is a dark forest. Maybe these new terrain features will play a role in your story.
Maps are something that a reader often refers to. A map is a bonus in a novel and whenever there is a map in a novel that I am reading the map pages are deeply dog-eared. It brings a different part of the readers brain into the story. Don’t neglect maps and don’t save them as an afterthought. Use them to their fullest potential. Even if you don’t have much skill with drawing, your map may be good enough to actually use in the final print version. It is the roughest maps that look like they are hand-drawn that are the best accompaniment to a fantasy story.
Make 3d scenes and dioramas for your world I am a diorama maker. I love creating little scenes with wizards, barbarians and all sorts of evil creatures. When I wrote my first novel I took on the ambitious project of creating a tabletop diorama for one particular area of the world I had created. It was a project that covered a custom built table that was seven feet long and four feet wide and it took a lot of time to build but the reward for this project was also big. Having an actual layout of a scene in the novel allowed me to breathe life into the novel. I could now see the terrain and the characters as they moved over it. I could envision the weather and the plant life. It made it much easier for me to draws pictures in my reader’s minds. You don’t have to do a project as ambitious as the one I did, you could just do a small scene but this type of world building in a visual sense will add a sense of depth to your writing.
Create a video game that you can walk around in This sounds like a lot of work, and a couple of years ago this was not an option for a hobbyist; but today the technology and tools are here that allow you to actually create some pretty amazing worlds in just a few hours. There are plenty of free resources that allow you to make indoor and outdoor worlds without spending a penny. You just need to invest some time. The technology has developed to the point where it is almost plug and play. Let me give you an example. You can sketch out in a world building tool a city. You can make it a certain size, place terrain and buildings in it then add all sorts of pre-made extras. In a weekend you can have a small and complete world that you can actually use a pre made character to walk around in your world. There are two distinct benefits to putting the effort into doing this. First of all you can build a pseudo realistic rendition of an area of your story and this can help you to visualize it better. And visualizing it better means you will describe it to your reader better. But secondly, and even more importantly, the process of creating this world in a medium other than pencil and paper will take your imagination and creativity to new levels. As you are building your world you will see it in a new way. This will bring you new ideas, ideas that you would have never thought of with just a word processor.
I have worked with several different software suites for creating worlds and one of the new ones is the Kaneva game platform. I haven’t used it yet but it looks very appealing and very user friendly. If you use this platform to make a world you can even invite other people to come and explore it with you. Wouldn’t that be something? You can tell them it is the world that your novel takes place in.
Epic fantasy and fantasy writing is, by its very nature, a creative art form. But too often we as writers in the genre tend to focus too much on either the physical action or the social interaction in the story. You must never forget that your story takes place in a world you created. And this world is the ground to which your whole story is tethered. It must be solid as stone and be clearly envisioned by you. And it must be clearly and vividly expressed to your reader. Building a physical representation of your created world brings it to a new level and helps you convey its sense of reality to your reader.
Both Bill Mccready & Will Kalif are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bill Mccready has sinced written about articles on various topics from Investments, self improvement and motivation and Investing and Trading. Bill McCready is a futures trader. His trading course, Futures Trading Secrets, has helped students all over the world improve their trading. To get 11 FREE futures trading lessons, a video, and free ebook, The Truth About Day Trading, visit. Bill Mccready's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.