Monthly Archives: November 2014

Advent Calendar Prequel

Tomorrow it is finally time.

My very own Advent Calendar will start!

But before it does I want to get a couple of words regarding the creation of it and the people that participated out of the way.

The amazing donors

As you might have noticed did I post my initial post not just here, but also on my (private and official) Facebook, Tumblr and Google+, as well as my deviantART and Animexx pages.
Some people like DarkFairy and Iron Eve send me pictures right away. But also Frigg from Friggs Photography send some of hers through Animexx, even though we had never talked before.
With a couple of reminders Black Kat and Anice, as well as Babsi from the Out&Loud and Rockharz send me some of theirs.
After our trip to Ireland Ed from EdMooneyPhotography also send me a couple of his pictures.
Anice then gave me the final pieces.
All of their pictures are incredible in their own way and I thank all of the above mentioned people for their participation!

Finding a story

The essence of my initial post was to get pictures that would inspire me to write stories. I anticipated that it wouldn’t be easy to write something for each one I got, but I still hoped I would get enough.
And let me tell you: It was a close call.
While getting the actual amount of pictures was easy as I had far above the 24 I needed and the pictures where pretty cool, did not every one of them provide me with the idea-spark needed to write a fitting story.
And this spark mostly hit when I first saw the picture and was brought to paper while I took the bus. I simply didn’t want to sit in front of a white screen while creating those stories thus I printed out the pictures and had it with me wherever I went – some of them even travelled with me to Ireland and three stories where written during that trip.
What also is notable about the writing process is that I switched languages.

Be warned that with opening the upcoming doors you will not always reveal an English story!

Pretty much all of my initial notes where in German, but some stories still wanted to be written in English, while the rest remained in my mother’s tongue.
It might be a disappointing day for the English natives amongst my readers, but it just felt more natural to write those stories in German. Just as it felt like I had to write the other ones in English.
I try adding an English (or German) equivalent of the stories, but if I don’t manage to do it and you want to have one, be sure to let me know and I’ll be adding them afterwards. Though I’m not sure the translation will do justice to the way it is originally written, but I’ll try my best.
If the story is written in the language, you don’t understand, try scrolling down and the translated version might show up before a short look behind the scenes. 🙂
The length of the stories depends on what I want to tell with it. Some will be relatively short, some will be a bit longer, but either are finished. Again, if you do want one of them to be continued: Just let me know and I’ll see if I can think up more for the given setting. A couple of them may even sound like they are – or indeed are – the continuation of another one.
Well, that said this leaves me with:

Have fun with my Advent Calendar!

You’ll find the complete calendar as separate page here: PoiSon’s Advent Calendar
PoiSonPaiNter

The Weekend Guess #38

Two days left until my Advent Calendar starts, tomorrow I’ll be on an Arkona/Eluveitie concert, but I still present to you the thirty eighth instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far it has been song titles and bands that you have to figure out, but now I’ve changed it to movies.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the thirty eighth set of questions

I am looking for the title of this movie (Hint: It’s a German movie):

A fragile, but clever boy rescuing his father and his strong warriors time and time again with his plans.

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Meet Joe Black

This time no one tried guessing, so I can’t congratulate anyone.

PoiSonPaiNter

Re-Wri-Day: Travelling

While I wrote the post about Fernweh I decided that it was time to finally have a look at those two posts again.

What is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the pages I changed: Through a bit of Germany 2012 and 2013

When I recently had a look at my old travelogues again I was struck by the sheer masses of texts.
So I did the only thing possible and added more line breaks and a few headlines and rephrased some sentences.
I hope this way the logs are easier to read and to enjoy.
And as I won’t make a Re-Wri-Day for the Re-Wri-Day’s, because that would be silly, I’m just stating it here:
Thanks to DarkFairy this category now also has a logo. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

Fernweh

Throughout this year I suffered a severe case of Fernweh and ferngeweht’s Blog-Parade gives me the final nudge to finish the post I started back in May.

For quite some time now I have this urge to travel, to explore new places and to simply be somewhere else.
Though until a few years ago I rarely did any of that as I was either too young to go on my own or to shy/insecure to do just that. Or too busy with riding back and forth between my home, my workplace and my place of study.

A shared experience

I don’t know why, but my main argument against travelling on my own is that I can’t share my discoveries with anyone right away. And writing a Blog post about it is just not the same as having someone with you, who is living through the same things as you.

Well, and as no one wanted or could accompany me, I instead set out to visit people.
Thus my idea to travel a bit through Germany was born in 2012 so I could at least see a bit of my home country, before I explore others as well.

Since then I managed to find people and places to visit each year.

In 2012 I saw Frankfurt, Köln (Cologne), Bochum and Raunheim for the first time, but I also paid another visit to Kassel, which became one of my yearly destinations.

The next year saw me not just visiting people but also attending two festivals in between.
Let me tell you, this is not an easy feat …

This year again was a bit different, as the first three days I travelled completely on my own, simply stopping whenever I felt like it. The rest of that journey I met up with family and friends again and it ended in the Metalfest, but I’ll give you a full review on that when I find the time.

Even with having these journeys and travelling to festivals in different places all over the country (this year: Geiselwind, St. Goarshausen, Ballenstedt and Hildesheim) and spending time in Berlin, Rostock and Hamburg for concerts and other events, my Fernweh wasn’t cured.

Then it hit me in July:

I hadn’t been to another country (for more than a day) in SIX YEARS

And I was no longer surprised that the urge remained. Following different travel-Blogs wasn’t really a helpful thing to do either.

To be able to cure my Fernweh for a little while, I knew I had to make a trip outside of Germany.
Luckily I had a couple of vacation days left to think up something.

Again, I was confronted with the fact, that if I wanted to travel for a longer time, I would have to do so on my own. I possibly would have done it, but after scrapping my initial ideas and creating a variation of them a friend and I spent Halloween on the Emerald Isle. It was a great remedy.

Not even a month has past since this trip, but the effects are already wearing thin and I can feel the Fernweh crawling up again (especially while writing this post)…

Because Fernweh for me is …

the urge to see different places.
the yearning to explore new things.
the restlessness of the wandering mind.
the wish to be somewhere else.

I’m not sure if my Fernweh was ever as strong as it was this year, but it does become quite bothersome at times. Especially when you want to leave, but aren’t able to because of work, money or other reasons.
But it let/s me discover new and interesting places every time I succumb/ed to it.

And these are the ones I’ve been at so far* – in Germany:

Google Maps of my Destinations

I’m sure that my Fernweh will lead me to more place, even outside of Germany.
Ireland was just the beginning. Sweden, England and others are already calling loudly for my attention.

I’m not sure where I’ll actually end up and when that’ll be, but I do plan on at least making one trip abroad next year as well – even if it’s just for a weekend again.

Regardless of my own struggles, I wish you all save travels.

I’m certain that I will not cease to explore new regions and places thanks to my Fernweh.

PoiSonPaiNter

*No guarantee for completeness. I most likely forgot a bunch of places or left them on purpose.

Reading Together #2

As I’m still not finished with the Advent Calendar and feel like doing this again, you get another instalment of Weltenwanderers and Schlunzenbüchers „Gemeinsam Lesen“ (Reading Together).

Each Tuesday one of them asks four questions, with the first three always being the same about the book one is currently reading and the fourth a new one by either of them. All questions below are obviously translated from today’s German post.
[Edit: I just noticed that this is the actual post I had to answer and I instead looked at the one from two weeks ago…
I added the real fourth question at the end.]

1. Which Book are you currently reading and which page are you on?

I’m currently reading „A Game of Thrones“ by George R.R. Martin, one of the books I had chosen as A book someone else picked for me for BiblioSmiles’s Summer Book Challenge.
I’m currently on page 49, so not that far into the story, but I already met some Starks, the last Targaryens, a couple of Baratheons and some White Walkers – though they are still unnamed.

2. What is the first sentence on your current page?

There were times – not many, but a few – when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard.

or in German:

Es gab Zeiten – nicht viele, aber einige wenige – wenn Jon Snow froh darüber war, ein Bastard zu sein.

3. What do you desperately need to tell about your current book? (Thoughts, Feelings, a Quote, whatever you want!)

As a more or less rule I do not watch movies and series unless I know the books.
Or at least there are three categories to this:

I don’t care (e.g. Percy Jackson)
I didn’t know (e.g. Earthsea)
I don’t want to see it without former knowledge (the majority of things out there)

The last category was mostly created thanks to the Lord of the Rings movies, as I simply didn’t understand them, even though I watched them twice – each. (Still have to read the book though…)
So for the Game of Thrones series I decided to read before watching as well, even though I’ve heard many things about it and seen several gifs on Tumblr already.
I’m curious how Martin pulls off the different story lines and handles his masses of characters. I do believe this’ll help me to improve myself as a writer.

[Edit: 4.1] It is time for something new by … ? Which author should pretty soon write another book in your opinion? Or is there a series were you’re thinking „Man there should be another part!!“ ?

As I am rarely up to date with any books by any author is the answer to this quite difficult for me.
Last time I told you that I don’t really like series, so I don’t even know were to start there.
I do, however, know a series were I asked myself after the fifth book or so, why the author IS still continuing it, because the stories were pretty much repeating itself over and over again…. (I’m talking about Wolfgang Hohlbein’s Chroniken der Unsterblichen/Chronicles of the Immortals)
As I declared it as my favourite series and mentioned I wouldn’t mind continuations I guess the Harry Potter books seem to fall into the „there should be another part“ category…

[Edit: 4.2 This weekend is the first Sunday of Advent! What are you most excited about during the time of Advent? Christmassy books, Blog-Advent Calendars or are there any book-related topics that delight you especially in this time of the year?

There is pretty much only one Blogg-Advent Calendar I’m excited about and that is my own…
This might sound selfish, but this is the first time I made a calendar myself and I’m just curios if people will like/enjoy it…
Though as I generally like Advent Calendars and find them a pretty good thing to get into a Christmas mood, I think I’ll check out a couple of others to see how they are done. (Like the BlogBoard Advent Calendar, where DarkFairy participates)
In the farther sense of book-related are the things I like most about the Advent time the many stories that are shared.
Be they as films on television or whatever.
I just like watching/reading Fairytales…]

Additional thoughts

You can obviously participate in these questions by either using my translated or the original German version.
I don’t know if I’ll be participating again next week or some other week, but maybe I’ll do. It seems interesting and could be another regular post beside my Weekend Guess.
Other than that would it also give me a way to talk about my current read without adding a Goodreads Widget to my sidebar.
We’ll see.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover, the quote and the banner belong to their rightful owners.

DF.PP Entertainment re-animated

DarkFairy and my mutual project DF.PP Entertainment is getting back into business!
Inspired by my idea for my Advent Calendar Fairy wanted to use it to get back into writing herself.

But to fill our slumbering Blog with new life we need your help!

Below the topic „Your picture – A story“ (/“Dein Bild – Eine Geschichte„) we want to write short stories for the pictures that are send to us.

And these are the rules for submissions:

You have to own the right to the picture. (You will be named in the post of course – except if you want to stay anonymous)
The picture has to be decent (no propaganda for violence, racism, pornography, etc.)
The picture has to be send as mail (attachment or link) with the subject “Your Picture – A Story” to one of the following adresses:
- Be surprised, who is writing the story: df_ppentertainment(at)yahoo.de
- PoiSonPaiNter writes the story (English/German): poisonpainter(at)ymail.com
- DarkFairy writes the story (German): therealdarkfairy(at)gmail.com

We will try, but we can’t promise that there will be a story for every picture (and maybe not a translation if the story is written in German). If we write a story, it will also be linked with the picture on our own Blogs (my collection will be here: Your Picture – A Story ).
So, if you want to help us continuing what I’ve started with the Advent Calendar and help us to get into the proper mood to finally finish our book „Warlords“ make sure to send us pictures.
We greatly appreciate all the help we can get and look forward to all the things we’re going to receive. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter