Good morning and welcome back to another Inspiration Friday! I hope y’all’s weeks have been great! I have a few articles for y’all to checkout today; especially if you enjoy Lord of the Rings, creative writing, or crypto news. I thought they were all exciting, influential, and a lot of fun to read. I hope you do too!
LOTR STAMPS CELEBRATE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY
https://nerdist.com/article/new-lord-of-the-rings-stamps-celebrate-20th-anniversary/
This was a fun little article that popped up on my feed the other day. Just another reason New Zealand would be a fun place to live, haha! I’m not big into stamps, never have been, never collected a stamp in my life, and in fact I’ve only purchased stamps like twice. However, these stamps do look really cool. I’d love to get a letter with one of these on the envelope.
Many of y’all probably know this but Tay and I are big Lord of the Rings nerds. It’s what bonded us in the very beginning. She was the only one that could recognize my hideous attempt at carving the tree of Gondor into my pumpkin, haha! So it goes without saying, anything Lord of the Rings related is always dear to our hearts :)
Four Powerful Creative Writing Exercises From Famous Authors
https://nicolebianchi.com/four-creative-writing-exercises/
I haven’t done any of these yet, but I certainly want to. These were some really really good ideas for improving your creative writing. I particularly liked the first one by George RR Martin. He suggests to do an exercise where you take 10 different character types and write a speech for them all.
If someone were to read the individual speeches without knowing who the character was, could they point them out? Or are all my characters basically the same person?
Having a solid character is super important in a good story. You could say a good story is almost all about character. The plot follows the character, not the other way around.
Retire Early With Cryptocurrency
https://link.medium.com/sWux7qb0ajb
Don’t let the title of this article throw you off. I’m not suggesting we’re retiring early because of crypto, and I’m not suggesting it’s a viable strategy to do either.
However, I do think the author does a great job at distinguishing two major crypto investment types. These are Bitcoin and smart contract technology.
A lot of people tend to think Bitcoin is the first and oldest crypto tech and so it will get run over by one of these other ones like Ethereum, Cardano, etc. However, I agree with this author that they are not really related. They solve two different problems. It’d be like saying Google is going to run a gold mine out of business...that doesn’t make any sense.
I personally don’t think Bitcoin is going anywhere. If you boil down what Bitcoin is, it’s a fully decentralized store of value that can replace currency, and it is the only thing like it.
U.S. Consumers Can Now Buy and Sell Cardano ($ADA) Directly From a Bank Account
I don’t think we’re going to switch banks any time soon, but this was certainly an interesting article about a bank that is diving into the crypto world. They are allowing account holders to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and others straight from your checking account. The interesting thing here I’d want to look more into, is that these investments would be insured. Now, they are not fully FDIC insured like your checking account is, but they do have some sort of assurance which is more than most exchanges offer. At least that I’m aware of.
However, the really exciting part is just that finally banks are not just taking notice of crypto, but taking action. I think the next 5-10 years will be very very interesting to say the least.