Tag Archives: new year

Back and Forth

The old year ended, the new has begun and as I didn’t feel like writing two posts, you get a combined look back and ahead.

2017 has been a year of firsts

The first time I’ve become part of a RPG group, where I wasn’t just a visitor.
My first own Blog-thing (Fairy Tale Summer)
The first time I had Guest Authors on my Blog
My first time visiting Vienna and Budapest
My first time at the Connichi.
I had my first ever Tonsillitis.
My first time at a book fair (BuchBerlin)
My first proper publication (Wintermond)
The first time I organized the writing of a story with more than one other authoress. (Adventskalender 2017)
The first time I really felt like an authoress.

and maybe some other things I can’t remember right now.

I’ve also met a lot of incredible people through Blogging and the Nornennetz that I’m very grateful to and for.

What else did I do?

I helped translate Gamers: The Series 0 and The Shadow Menace by Zombie Orhpeus Entertainment & Dead Gentlemen Production
I started working on The Queens Wish.
I participated in several Blog Parades, some concerning writing, others about books.
I send in three stories for anthologies (one mentioned above, two don’t have a result yet, but one is the English version of an old story).
Two more of my stories were published through the Bücherstadt Kurier.
I revisited Prague and Kassel.

and so forth …

What does this year hold in store?

I’ll be attending the Leipziger Buchmesse for the first time, I’ve already gotten accredited as Blogger.
I hope to finish re-working an old Project and publishing it – infos on the progress can me found under the Hashtag #AKWP 😉
I hope to finish at least one bigger project and potentially publish.
I hope to get positive feedback from the stories I sent in.
I want to do another Fairy Tale Summer, though not in Summer.
I want to do another Nerd-Week, probably in the week from Free Comicbook Day to Gratis Comic Tag.
I want to write more regularly.
I want to keep at reading the books that are waiting for my on my to-read pile and try not to buy that many new ones …
…

I’m not sure if I’ll be travelling that much this year, but I guess I’ll concentrate on exploring Germany again.

But the one thing I have to consider most this year:

Do I keep blogging in English or do I change to permanently bilingual or even German entirely?
I haven’t gotten much feedback from English readers and with something published in German and me being part of a German network makes it kind of hard to only write in English … but both are quite exhausting …
I’ll have to think on this a little more – feedback appreciated.

Well everyone:

Happy New Year! May all your plans and wishes come true!

PoiSonPaiNter

New Year, new whatever?

It’s 2017.

Happy new Year!

Or at least I hope it will be happy and have lots of good stuff in store for everyone…
I mean after all that stuff happening in 2016, we are in for a treat, right?
Let’s do a headcount:
It was the first complete year with just Dad and me. Lots of ups and downs on that front, but that’s family for you. Still miss her a lot. Don’t think that’ll ever change.
It was the year the house I live in was renovated and my flat decided to take a bath. I still haven’t completely settled in again…
And of course it was the year that took away many incredible people and gave us some quite frightening things to look forward to. Though the people-part is arguable. With a celebrity-focused media like we have today it’s not really surprising that they talk about so many celebrities that have died this year, it’s what they do, but I’m fairly certain that before all this there would still be a time where the famous people you loved growing up or in your adulthood would still die at some point, because that’s life. It just wasn’t as broadly discussed as it is nowadays. Everyone knows the major players in popular culture, so of course we all have our own stories when they face their untimely demise. And with cancer and heart attacks being common disease spread across nations, why would they stop before people like them? Just saying…

But it wasn’t really that bad a year…

at least not for me.
I might only have been on one Concert (Van Canto as far as I can remember) and one Festival (Rockharz), but I’ve been to a couple of other just as interesting things.
I spent nearly two fascinating weeks in London with Janzy. A long overdue visit that couldn’t have been better. I’m pretty sure I’ll tell you about it one day.
I had a pretty fun (and exhausting) weekend of Convention-hopping with Schmusi and AnnaTao when we went from the German Comic Con Berlin to the TimeLash in Kassel (Review 2015) on the same weekend. I got to see James Marsters live in concert and panel and talk to two Doctors and Ace, so that was worth it. And we rounded the whole thing up with a visit to the incredible Wind Mill Museum in Gifhorn.
Two of my stories were good enough to be published on other sites (you’ve read about it during my Advent Calendar). A few others where published here and at DFPP Entertainment. A third story also won a minor writing competition again.
It was a great year for movies, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange, to name a few, and I got to catch up with some other movies and series I haven’t had the chance of watching before. I also read more than my usual average of books and even dived into a few comics I haven’t read before.
I wrote a couple of often read posts including my review about Mara and the Firebringer and The Gamers that were (recently) shared by their creators, though the most read ones are still my old ones somehow…(apparently WordPress didn’t do statistics like they did the years before so I can’t link you to an overview here, sorry…)
I also helped fund different projects on Kickstarter, including Nichtlustig-cartoons, Attacking the Darkness post-production and JourneyQuest Season 3. For the latter two I also helped create the German subtitles, which was an interesting experience altogether. Oh, and I also got to coin the Orcish words for „whimper(ing)“ – bawulai(/-lon) and „war drum“ – sabatam (based on „Bawling Baby“ and Sabaton – the band – respectively). 😉 And helped a few artists on Patreon…
Anyway…

What will 2017 bring?

Honestly? I don’t know.
I want to to finally finish a few stories that have been lying around all year while I either finished other stuff or was not in the mood to write at all. There are also a few stories that have a basic outline that I want to complete for a different project to be published with three stories I already prepared for it last year (including The Quest for Ore and A new Day 😉 ) and of course many other story ideas that are still floating around in my head.
Last year (that still sounds weird…) I made good on my self-imposed schedule for a while but then dropped it again after a couple of weeks, so I guess I’ll give it another try at some point…
But right now I’ll enjoy my last vacation days and next week I might be celebrating my birthday (unfortunately not in Dublin at a Sabaton concert 🙁 ) with a couple of friends, we’ll see.

All the best for the New Year!

PoiSonPaiNter

Good riddance, 2015

Finally this awful year is at its end and I don’t really feel like writing more about it then necessary – those who followed this Blog throughout the year, know what I’m talking about – and therefore point you to the WordPress‘ helper monkeys* who prepared their annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 47 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Have a save Journey into the new Year, see you in 2016!

PoiSonPaiNter
* The German version has elves, the English one gets monkeys… 🙁

Happy New Year

Here we are again.
A new day and even more so a new year.
So, let me repeat and add to my title:

Happy New Year! May all your plans and wishes come true to your liking!

Now that that’s said:

What has this new year in store?

Many things that I don’t know yet, but a few I can influence.
As I told you before am I planning to do another Book-Week in January, namely in the week from the 12th to the 18th, because on the 17th Unmei and I will be visiting the Harry Potter Exhibition in Cologne.
On the 19th I’ll be at another concert of the Knight Shoe (Sabaton), this time with Anice and Danger from the Black Pack and Babsi and Jenni from the Out&Loud.
I’m looking forward to either of those. 😀
In May I’ll be at a Blind Guardian concert, though I’m not entirely sure, who else will be there…
It is also highly likely that Anice and I will return to the Rockharz in July and won’t travel to Sweden – at least not this year.
But I hope Janzy and I will finally manage to make our trip to London, after she got her Master’s degree. 🙂
The rest is pretty open yet, but there are a few things I want to accomplish writing-wise.
Well, most of all I need to finally catch up with the remaining Festival/Concert reviews, I’m far behind on those ones and I’ll try to get them done before June (and some of those other media reviews I still wanted to write throughout the year).
I also want to finally finish Crossing Over – I managed to post the full amount of two chapters last year. Then there is The Return of Magic that doesn’t have a proper ending yet, but I want to at least get it actually started.
And the one I’m most anxious about is probably the re-write of the Elevator tale. I now have some more ideas to go on and I think I can improve it.
But I’m not planning on only writing Fanfiction, I also want to continue my original work. The tales of the Dwarves demand to be continued and one story only needs to be typed, the other finished and then there are many more notes that could lead to more stories.
Then there is Your Picture – A Story, DarkFairy and mine new project over at DF.PP Entertainment that will see me write new stories for photographs. (Feel free to send us your work, to be included in it. 😉 )
And I’ll try to get the concept and idea for this years Advent Calendar, I’m fairly certain it will be a 24 chapter long story.
With all this writing I still want to continue reading though. In the last hours of 2014 I managed to finish my 20th book that year and I would like to read at least the same amount this year as well. The reading challenges will help me pick the books.
Well, that’s all I can think of right now.
Guess we’ll see what this new year has in store after all. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

Bye, bye 2014

It’s already time for this year to end and I decided to take a look back with the help of WordPress.com’s annual report.

The Posts

From what I already saw in May did the Fandom posts indeed became the most read ones.
The one about the Doctor Who 2048 game gained 1839 views in total and the Elevator Meme reached 380. Surprisingly two posts from 2013 made it into the top list as well and seem to still be of interest to some Googlers. 🙂
Does this now mean for me that I should write more Fandom posts to please my readers?
Well, I certainly will continue to write about some of it, but I’ll pick the topics that interest me most.
Other than that did I manage to write an incredible amount of posts in these past twelve months, though that is mostly thanks to the Weekend Guesses and my Advent Calendar with together a total of 69 posts.
I nearly managed to write my 200th post in this year as well, but I’m short 17 posts.

The Readers

Most interesting for me in this statistic was the fact that I had readers from 82 countries all across the world.
That is quite impressive to me and to think they all read what I’ve written here is also a tad scary.
Though regardless of this I still only got a few comments, most of them from DarkFairy and fruehstuecksflocke and mostly for the Guesses.
Interestingly I showed up amongst the top commenters on two other Blogs, namewise Pop goes the Culture and Weltenschmiede, where I had some quite interesting conversations.
I’m grateful for all the comments I got, but I wouldn’t mind getting more, so feel free to leave me your thoughts in 2015. 😉

The Report

Now enough is said about it, just have a look at what the WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared as a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,100 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Year in general

2014 was a quite interesting year.
I finally got my Bachelor’s degree.
I attended several pretty great festivals (Out&Loud, Rockharz, Metalfest) and concerts (Schandmaul, Van Canto, Bela B., Eluveitie/Arkona).
I also travelled again and this time not just throughout Germany, but also to Ireland.
And I discovered some interesting new Blogs and started a new regular post and also successfully given you my Advent Calendar.
I caught up with a bunch of series (e.g. Merlin, Supernatural, Being Human, … ) and been in the cinema for a few times (like for X-Men) or watched movies on DVD. With a renewed enthusiasm I started to properly read again, resulting in a Book-Week in the week leading up to a visit to a Book Hotel and two reading challenges I participate in.
And if I manage to get some quiet time today, I’ll even manage to finish my twentieth book this year (only 50 pages left).
And probably many more things I can’t think of right now.
So you see, a lot has happened this year.
What will 2015 bring?
We’ll see about that tomorrow. 😉
That said I’d like to repeat my words from Sunday:

I wish you all a save journey into the new year or in short Guten Rutsch!

PoiSonPaiNter

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a good start into the new year. 🙂
This year will be full of changes for me.
In March I will stop being a student (at least I hope so) and get a real contract with my company.
This’ll finally give me more time for some of my projects.
Amongst other things I would like to start reading more again. I miss it, but I was mostly too tired of looking at stuff to take out one of my many unread books.
I also want to write down some more of my stories. Proper fiction mostly, but I also want to finish Crossing Over and try out some new Crossovers.
And I think about refreshing my Russian and instrument skills.
Though I think, figuring out where I want to go from here will be the most difficult thing next year.
A few changes for this Blog will be made as well and I also still have things to write from last year.
Like the reviews for the Wave Gothik Treffen (WGT), Wacken and M’era Luna, as well as for the Die Ärzte concert and the HellNights I attended. And my report for my journey through Germany.
Apart from that I’ll try to get some kind of schedule for this Blog.
My idea so far is to post once every week. Each post will be for a certain general topic, like: Movies/Series; Books/Manga/Comics, Music/Concerts/Festivals and Thoughts. I’m not so sure about the actual order, though.
I already have drafts for the six posts from last year, several different series, some thoughts and one for the Books category, but they are mostly far from being finished.
Additionally to that new reviews will be added, as I will be attending the Metalfest Loreley again, but also the Out&Loud festival and the tickets for concerts of Van Canto and Schandmaul are already bought.
My journey this year might be a little shorter or even non-existent as a former fellow student and I are trying to figure out a trip to London.
And who knows what I will come up with throughout the year.
I also created a Tumblr site during the last hours of 2013: Random Poison
Not sure how and if I’ll use it, but at least I am able to follow some people more easily this way and am able to promote my post a bit more. 😉
Anyway.
Today I’ll leave you with a quite short post, as I don’t want to spoil too much of what will be written here.
I wish you all the best for this new year and hope you manage to do all the things you aspire to do.
PoiSonPaiNter