Who am I?
My name is Rod Smith and I’m a musician / songwriter / writing enthusiast from Ireland.
I'll be mostly posting creative writing pieces, some bits about songs and my songwriting process, and maybe other random thoughts that pop into my head.
So, how did I get here?
Well, it’s a combination of two of things – Creative Writing and Crypto.
Recently, I finally started paying attention to the ‘Crypto’ section on my phone’s Revolut App, (It’s a money app over here in Ireland), investing small little bits of my ‘pocket money’.
I became fascinated watching it go up and up and up, in small but significant increments.
“Wow…” I said to my wife one evening, who at the time was busy trying to wrestle the kids to the dinner table. “I just made 40 euro on crypto since lunch time… isn’t that amazing?!”
Her blank stare should have told me that she probably didn’t give a crap about my newest ‘hobby’ at that particular time.
“Yes dear, that’s great dear”-masterfully balancing several small plates of spag bol up along her arm-“now a little help here, please?”
Oblivious to her exasperated tone, and with a big stupid grin plastered across my face, I kept staring at that small screen in my hand, repeatedly thumbing the balance button in childlike amazement, while subconsciously picking up a laughing, squirming four y/o with the other arm and plonking him down on his chair.
But that night came the reality check – after finally bribing the kids to at least pretend to go to sleep – I greedily grabbed my phone to check what new highs my crypto had reached, only to find – I was now DOWN 20 euro.
"WTF???" I spat out.
“What the hell happened… where’s my money gone!?”
In the two hours since I last checked my balance, my new found fortune had been wiped out - and even worse, 20 euros of my original investment was also gone. Of course I frantically sold the rest - I didn’t want to lose all my money after all – only to painfully watch the green chart rise up again the next morning, you guessed it, higher than it was before.
“Oh, so THIS is Crypto…”
A harsh lesson to learn, but 20 euro loss is better than 200 euro loss, which in turn is better than 2000 euro loss, but no matter, I knew from that point I was hooked. I started researching everything crypto and down one particular rabbit hole I found Hive.Blog.
“Hmmm, writing and crypto, now that’s interesting...”
And that brings me to another obsession of mine -
Songwriting.
I’ve been writing songs for the last 20 or so years, some good ones, some OK ones, a LOT of bad ones, but in the last few years I really started studying the craft of songwriting, exploring in more detail the concepts and ideas behind my songs and this is where I first discovered object writing.
I’ve now read Pat Pattison’s songwriting and lyric books several times – deep diving into the senses, bringing the simplest of objects to life. I always found I wrote my best songs when I was also practicing this type of creative writing.
When I work on writing exercises, I automatically pick up on ideas and phrases that I think would work well for new songs as well – and plus when those ideas do come along, I'm already in that writing flow - so, similar to a relay race, if I'm already running when I get the idea, I find it's easier to carry that idea all the way to the finish line.
So that’s in reality why I’m here, to keep up my writing practice – as my problem is I never seem to be able to stick with it - Life gets in the way or I don’t make the time I should make for it. Typically after a while I find some excuse to not put pen to paper, or fingers to keys and my songwriting output suffers.
So I’m here for motivation, I’m here for accountability - as I know from previous attempts, if I post my work online I’m far more likely to continue posting.
But most of all, and this is the big one… I’m here for that sweeeeet 0.02 cent I could possibly make on each post if I get a like or two! :)
In fairness though, I wanted to find a community that was engaging and vibrant, that would give me that extra motivation to keep up my writing practice, which would in turn inspire my songwriting – plus I LOVE the fact that it’s all linked in with crypto technology, something I’m learning more and more about each day.
So that’s me.
I can’t wait to explore the communities more, hopefully join many of them, so if there’s any creative writing communities (I think I may have spotted some already!) or songwriting ones on here I’d love it if you let me know.
And if you’ve read this far, thank you, I appreciate that time is precious and hope you have an amazing day.
Rod
(strangegravy)
P.s. Thanks also to @lovesniper and @chillwithshanna from @ocd for the suggestion to write an intro post, hopefully I'll find my feet around here soon! :)
Very cool, man. Good luck here. Just know there's a lot to learn, and no free lunch. Ease in, work up. Plenty of people around to help, so don't be a stranger.
Thanks man!
Yeah, I've a lot to learn here on the mechanics of the place and how it all works, but hey, that'll come with time I suppose - as long as I keep hitting that 'submit post' button regularly enough, then that means I'm still writing and on the right path...
Love what I've read of your blog posts so far by the way.
Thanks again for the comment!
I delegated 25HP (Hive Power)your way. That'll give you some 'resource credits' to use. Each time you vote, post, comment you burn through resource credits, but they do recharge. You were almost wiped out but now you're sitting at about 80% which will take about 19 hours to fully recharge, as of this writing.
That's something most new folks struggle with. Then they run out and can't interact. I think some panic and think it's game over but like I said, it does recharge.
Keep in mind that's not permanent. Just a loan I can switch off whenever I want.
So that should help. Quality over quantity here. Be consistent, but patient as well. It's a grind getting the ball rolling here.
I'll reblog this as well and maybe help put you on the map. Depends who's looking I guess.
Hey man, thanks a million, I appreciate the help... I kinda feel like it's the first day of school tbh! 🤣
I'll look up some tutorials on the HP and vote, post and comment system... That stuff for me at the moment is like "Whaaaatt??" But yeah, I know it'll come in time, so baby steps.
lol yeah and now we'll drop a mountain of textbooks on you and say, "Good luck!"
The PeakD FAQ might have some info
https://peakd.com/about/faq
PeakD is just another way to access Hive in this way. Not sure if you know about it...
https://peakd.com/@strangegravy
Has a lot of nice features and a lot of buttons I haven't even pressed yet.
And that probably didn't help because now you have more to learn LOL! Take it slow.
There are some music communities around as well. I call it 'digital busking' when folks record a live performance and share it here. Pretty cool stuff, common to see. But yeah I don't want to overwhelm. Just have fun. Mingling helps.
Oh ok, so the posts show up on a number of sites, but all interlinked... Interesting!
The faq section looks really good (and should have been my first port of call tbh!)
Yeah, there's a lot to take in, but as long as I'm writing and posting frequently, then the rest will come over time.
I'll join that community too, but there's a reason I just write songs more than singing them. 😂
Really appreciate the massively warm welcome and the HP delegation, I presume I wouldn't have been able to reply to everyone without it, so again, cheers dude.
Yup. Hive.blog, PeakD, Eccency and so on. Then there are Tribes, which also have a frontend, but your work only appears on those if you use their Tribe tag. Utilizing Tribes also gives you a chance to earn their tribe tokens. So you can write a post once in your favorite frontend editor (mine is PeakD), publish it. That post will appear on all frontends and Tribe frontends if you so choose to use one. You'll earn Hive Power and HBD, and possibly tribe tokens on top of that. All that with one push of the post button utilizing your favorite editor. I'll tell you all this now so you're familiar with these words and concepts. Things will fall into place as you progress.
If you ever have a question and don't mind longwinded confusing answers, don't hesitate to ask.
And be sure to venture outside your own space and talk to folks, find your people. Otherwise you're invisible here dude. Comments pay as well, sometimes. I'll give you a nice one here. But just know half goes to you, half goes to me. Same with posts. Half goes to you, the other half is split between those who voted. It might sound crazy but I promise it's a pretty cool system.
Welcome, good luck and most of all... have fun!
Thank you! It's all a bit new, but will get used to how the place flows soon hopefully.
Thank you for introducing yourself so honestly. I stumbled upon your post while looking for a good enough way to introduce myself as well.
If it helps, your way of writing took me in immediately (can I even say it like that?) I’ve been writing ever since high school, but mostly in my mother language, Serbian. Lately I have been trying to upgrade my writing skills in English, so I can express myself better. If you keep writing here, know that I will be reading and you’ll be helping a Serbian girl to improve her language skills.
Sending warmth and gratitude your way
Dora
Dora, thank you so much for your lovely post, it really means a lot!
And your writing skills are brilliant, I wouldn't worry about that at all. To be honest, following my posts might actually make you worse! 😂
Welcome strangegravy!
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The Crypto section is so relatable haha. I learnt eventually that instead of selling, if I just rage quit and come back in, say, 3 months time, things will be back in order. Hive is here to stay so when it plummets down to 30cents or 7 cents, it's kinda meaningless. Just another Tuesday in Crypto. Next thing you know its $18 and that $15 post isn't looking so unimpressive now is it??? shows wife $600 blog post about a weird mushroom. (I'm basing this on real events back in the day when it was called Steem).
One guy I worked with here saw his account pass the $1,000,000 mark and he still didn't sell lol. Dedication for ya.
Anyway, I'm also a musician so hit me up if you need, I dunno, Shakuhachi, viola, tin whistle or guitar recordings or something!
And welcome!
Ha, ha... Thank you.
Crypto fascinates and terrifies me in equal measure! I can see how you'd keep chasing that high and get burned really easily when it crashes.
You'd want to have your wits about you.
I didn't even do a massive amount of research with Hive and earning part etc. I just wanted a place to put up some of my writing that was linked with Crypto I'm some way and Hive looked like a cool, active community.
But I'm such a newb, it'll take me a while to see how it all flows, I'm sure as I get into it, the do's and don'ts of that side will register more. 🙂
Great to find other musicians too, tin whistle is a very Irish instrument, great to build up my network and yeah, always looking for possible colab's.
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Good luck man. Crypto is a wild game. It's been a very up and down decade. (Mostly full of wins.)
Hive (formerly Steem) is a great community. There is a certain ebb and flow here but this place is what you make of it.
Cheers man!
Yeah, I was thinking after doing some research that I'm probably 10 years too late to this Crypto game, but then again, looking at some of the innovations still happening now, maybe not.
The second best time to plant a tree is now, as they say 🙂
It’s not like anything crazy happened with me. I don’t have a lambo nor am I about to take a billionaire-esque space trip. It’s never too late man.
Cheers Rod! Welcome aboard, A touching intro, you poetically told your story of getting to know crypto, a life and comical situation! XD
Good luck to you, creative people and interesting personalities are always welcome here.
Thanks dude, appreciate it... I don't know how my wife puts up with me! 🙂
Great to find other musicians on here too, looking forward to checking out your stuff!
Welcome to the Hive!!!
Back in 2006, I was broadcasting a festival, and Bonnie Raitt was backstage getting ready to perform. She looked at me very seriously and asked me ... "Do you know why a bass guitar has 4 strings?" I thought she was serious ... I was co-owner of an audio broadcast business, so I figured I should no this. But, I gave in and stated that "No, I'm not aware of the reason." Still with a stern face, she explained. "It's in case 3 of the strings break."
And that was my one and only interaction with her.
Hahaha... That's hilarious, and to be honest, my playing style can relate to it! 😁
I was never good at being too fancy on bass, I rather kept it simple, probably why I leaned more towards the songwriting aspect, as I found melody and lyric writing easier when floating over simple bass lines.
Thanks so much for the warm welcome!
Welcome! Saw your introduction from a reblog and I have to say that you've captured what a lot of people feel when they first start out in crypto 😂 Crypto is volatile, so don't go putting your life savings into it, you'll probably end up making more wise decisions than I did (selling over 90ETH at 100 bucks in March 2020, still hurts me till this day lmao). I've only joined Hive for about a month and, I think the community here is great, there are lots of great people who will welcome you wherever you go. Enjoy your stay, cheers!
Thank you... Yeah, from what I read after it seems like a lot of people first experience! 😁
Shit, I don't think I'd ever be right after that ETH experience though, but I could see myself doing exactly the same thing. Hopefully you got what you need out of the money at the time!
That's great to hear about Hive, looking forward to exploring it more!
Welcome to Hive. 😃
Thank you! 🙂
You’re welcome. 😃
Welcome to Hive, hope that we all will have a good time here and you will share with us lots of your great adventures.
Thank you, me too! 🙂
Good job.
Thanks 🙂
Welcome to hive blockchain 🙂
Thank you, lots to learn! 🙂
Hello & Welcome to Hive. As you are a musician I really recommend you to check out @risingstargame . It's a NFT game build around music career 🙂
ps. you can earn crypto there as well 😉
Thank you, yes I will check it out! 🙂
welcome! hope to see some cool photos (of either the instruments or the rocks!)
Thank you. Yeah, I'll definitely be taking a lot more photos too. 🙂
Welcome to the hive.blog community.
It's good that you show us your musical work in this community, greetings friend and success in your stay.
Welcome to hive bro, I love music, I play drums, I can't wait to see your music posts
Welcome @strangegravy,explore