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10 Jahre Random Poison!

Kaum zu glauben, aber heute vor zehn Jahren erschien mein allererster Blogbeitrag!
Deswegen möchte ich euch heute mitnehmen auf eine kleine Zeitreise.
Auf Twitter konntet – und könnt ihr auch bis vermutlich Ende des Jahres – unter dem Hashtag #RandomPoiNten ein paar Beiträge aus dem Archiv anschauen, aber auch hier werde ich ein bisschen in Erinnerungen schwelgen.

Wie Poison Random wurde …

Alles begann damals 2012 mit der aberwitzigen Idee neben fanfiction.net auch einen Ort für meine originalen Geschichten zu haben und dazu auch die Möglichkeit meine Gedanken in die Welt hinaus zu … flüstern – für posaunen fehlt mir auch jetzt noch die Reichweite, aber das ist ein anderes Thema.

Nachdem ich zunächst auf einer anderen Plattform eine schrecklich zusammengeklöppelte HTML-Seite füllte, fand ich WordPress und bin seit dem hier geblieben, wenn auch mittlerweile auf einem selbst-gehosteten Server. Doch zuvor musste ein Name her.

Monatelang überlegte ich hin und her, mit was sich der Blog genau befassen sollte und vor allem, wie ich ihn nennen sollte. Da ich mich aber nicht festlegen wollte – und konnte und noch immer nicht kann – war schnell klar, dass es keine Spezialisierung geben würde. Ebenso legte ich damals fest auf Englisch zu bloggen, um es weiter zu üben.

Und dann klickte es, denn das wie ich vorhatte zu schreiben war schlicht und einfach: Random.
Da mich der Name Poisonpainter zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits ~4 Jahre begleitete, sollte auch der Einzug finden und die Kurzform gesellte sich in den Titel.

Was folgte war eine Mischung aus Nerdkram, Geschichten, Gedanken und ein Blick hinter die Kulissen.

Uuuund Action!

Viele Aktionen habe ich über die Jahre begonnen, pausiert oder beendet. Lasst uns mal ein paar davon anschauen …

Circa drei Jahre (2014-2016) gab es wöchentlich den Weekend Guess, ein Rätsel in dem ihr zunächst Lieder, dann Filme, schließlich Bücher und öhm random Sachen, die mir gerade einfielen, erraten konntet. Nach hundert Beiträgen war vorerst Schluss.

Und dann kam der Märchensommer … aber dazu später mehr!

Ein Versuch die Dinge, die ich sah, erlebte oder las zu ordnen waren der What’cha Watching Wednesday, On the Road und diverse Reviews. Gebündelt auch in der Book-Week und der Nerd-Week habe ich versucht mich auf eine Thematik zu konzentrieren. Letzteres gelang mir allerdings nur drei Mal, selbst mit der Idee nach den Superheldinnen von 2018 eine Woche zu Schurkinnen zu machen. Doch vorerst bleibt es lediglich beim Gedanken. Auch der Rest schlief ein, da ich nicht mehr die Energie hatte Gedanken für einen Blogbeitrag auszuformulieren. Ein WWW liegt z.B. seit Dezember 2019 in meinen Entwürfen, genauso wie diverse Berichte zu Konzerten, Festivals und Reisen. Mittlerweile kann ich mich vermutlich nicht mehr gut genug erinnern, um es nachzuholen – abgesehen davon, dass es entsprechend verjährte Eindrücke sind.

Generell habe ich mich über die Jahre über diverse Fandom Sachen ausgelassen und besonders Lost in Translation war ein Projekt, dass ich gerne weitergeführt hätte, aber wieder diese unsägliche Motiva-dingsta … Es machte gleichermaßen Spaß und war sehr frustrierend sich über die Verhunzung der Deutschen Sprache in englischsprachigen Medien auszulassen.

Hin und wieder habe ich mich auch bemüht an Aktionen anderer Leute mitzumachen. Gemeinsam Lesen und die #LoveWritingChallenge sind nur zwei Beispiele neben diversen Tags und Aktionen. Regelmäßigkeit war aber auch da nicht meine Stärke.

Die großen Nummern

Die beitragsreichsten Aktionen meiner 10-jährigen Blogkarriere waren allerdings die bisherigen fünf Märchensommer (2017- ?) und meine fünf Adventskalender (2014-2018). Letzteres habe ich vor vier Jahren leider eingestampft, aber zumindest der Märchensommer soll dieses Jahr in die sechste Runde gehen. Die Vorbereitungen dafür werde ich dann als nächstes in Angriff nehmen.

Dafür und auch für die Superheldinnen habe ich allerdings die Beiträge nicht immer alleine geschrieben, denn auch Gastbeiträge haben einen Platz gefunden, um die Themen zu bereichern.

An dieser Stelle ein großes DANKESCHÖN an alle, die mir je etwas Geschriebenes zur Verfügung stellten!

Die Zukunft

Bis auf August 2012 habe ich es geschafft jeden Monat mindestens einen Beitrag auf dem Blog zu veröffentlichen. Diese Strähne würde ich gerne weiterführen. Allerdings vermute ich, dass sich der Inhalt weiter mehr und mehr auf meine schreiberische Tätigkeit verlagern wird. Gelegentlich werde ich Empfehlungen zeigen, z.B. während des Märchensommers und vielleicht werde ich doch nochmal das ein oder andere alte Thema ausbuddeln.

Alles andere wird sich zeigen.

Mit mehr als 700 Beiträgen hab nicht nur ich den Überblick verloren, was ich euch sonst noch so vorstellen kann, sonder ihr auch eine ganze Weile Lesestoff, wenn ihr jetzt neugierig geworden seid! Also: Tobt euch aus! Vielleicht schafft ihr es dadurch eine alte Kategorie wieder zum Leben zu erwecken!

Anne

My Blog and I

Back in June angetearz started a blogparade called „Du und dein Blog“ (You and your Blog) where Bloggers were asked to talk a bit about themselves and their blogs(, duh). I discovered this a while back on Twitter and it sounded interesting enough to answer the given questions for myself – and maybe draw some more attention to this place. 😉
Anyway, let’s begin…

The Questions*

 1. Who are you? Introduce yourself!

I’m PoiSonPaiNter, or Anne in real life, I’m a Reader, Writer, Nerd, Blogger, Metalhead and Traveller, but most of all Teller of Stories and an advocate for puns and alliterations. 😀
Oh, and I’m horrible at introducing myself, as you might have noticed, so I’ll just quietly nod towards my about page. 😉

2. Since when are you blogging? And how did it all start?

Officially I started this Blog back in February 2012, but I barely used it (one post per month was the average). The initial reason was that I wanted a place to collect my stories, improve my English and use it for some obscure other project I can’t remember any more. I had been thinking about a Homepage or Blog for a while back then, but when I came up with the name „Random Poison“ I just started it, without much of a plan – though, it’s not like I have one now, but well.
This changed around the end of 2013 and it really took a turn for the better starting 2014. (Curiously, August 2012 is the only month I didn’t post anything at all). Since then the average got up at least a little. 😉

3. Does your environment know you’re blogging? If so, what are they saying? If not, why not?

Yes and no. It’s not that I’m keeping it a secret, it just doesn’t come up that often – or the other party is just not interested in details more than „I wrote about that on my Blog“. 😉
The most sceptic about it though is my Dad, who thinks I blurt out all my secrets, but he’s wary of anything technological, so…

4. Are you using Social Media? And how can one follow you?

I am indeed. You could follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter where I’m most active. But I also have a few others you can find in the menu „Other Pages of Mine“ below.

5. Is there something that bothers you about the blogging world? And what would you wish for? (Dare to be honest)

Apart from the fact that I rarely get any reactions – a like now and again, but comments? They are scarce – is it hard as German Blogger to blog in English. So regardless of how many (German) Blog Parades I participate in, there is barely any feedback from other people than the creators. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the German readers don’t feel like reading something in English, sometimes because they lack the language knowledge, and push the site away without a second glance, without noticing that there indeed are bilingual posts here (like the Märchensommer/Fairy Tale Summer or my Advent Calendars) and even German Short Stories or that they can comment in German and always ask for help if they struggle with a translation…
Well, it’s not like my English reader are any better at this, they are probably scared when the title is German and the post starts in German, regardless of the „Read in English“ Link to the translation…
A part of me is thinking about changing my Blog language to German, the other part enjoys writing in English far too much and doesn’t want to change it – both parts know I’d be too lazy to constantly have bilingual posts…
Other than that: Even if I make a comment somewhere, which is rare as I prefer to actually say something with my comments, it’s not always that I get a reply, though I’m not sure if my comments are just not interesting enough or formulated in a way that no further, decent, comment is possible…but I don’t know, as no one tells me. 😉
What is most frustrating though is that Blogger and WordPress don’t share a comment-notification system…it’s so annoying to check back with Blogger-blogs to see if anyone replied – not to mention the double bot-check… can’t they just do something about that? XD So my wish would be something that properly connects those two, without you having to make two accounts for it…

6. And what do you like about the blogging world?

The uniqueness of each Blogger. It’s amazing how two (and many more) people can write about the same topic, but from a completely different point of view. Take the Guest posts for the Fairy Tale Summer for example: At their core they all talked about Fairy Tales, but they all found a different aspect to it. Or all these Blogs dealing with writing itself. They always find something else to write about and even if they write about the same thing there is no guarantee that they come to the same conclusion. Sure it can be annoying at times when one person tells you one thing and another the complete opposite, but isn’t that the beauty of free speech? That all these opinions can exist and be read and you yourself can put together your own world view?
I also like the interactions over the Social Media and to discover things that I probably wouldn’t even have thought about. 🙂

7. Are you reading outside of your „Blog area“ or are you, as e.g. book blogger, only reading book blogs?

As I don’t really have a „Blog area“ (hence its name „Random“ 😉 ), I’m always reading outside of it. Though I am kind of tired of reading book blogs, probably because everyone is doing it and because it reminds me of my far too long To Read List…

8. Networking is important. Do you have favourite Blogs? Show them!

There are indeed a few

German Blogs

I enjoy reading.
It seems like Joseph of What’s best in Life? and I are on a similar wavelength regarding different nerdy movies/series and it’s always interesting to read his reviews. Afterwards I don’t feel like writing my own, because he already said everything I’d want to say. 😉
Then there is the Weltenschmiede (World Smithy) which always has interesting articles about world building by fruehstuecksflocke and Evanesca – who’s Blogs in turn are also quite interesting, especially today as Evanesca is celebrating the release of „Zarin Saltan“ (Tzaritza Saltan) as part of the Märchenspinnerei, her adaptation of the Russian Fairy Tale „Tzar Saltan“.
As for writing stuff I like the posts by the Schreibmeer (literally Writing Ocean, though it’s probably a pun on Write More – as more and ocean are only a letter apart in German: mehr/Meer), they usually give you something to mull over. Same goes for Frau Schreibseele (Ms Writingsoul) and some of the other Blogs I discovered through the Nornennetz (Nornnetwork).
But as I’m writing in English, I also read some

English Blogs

though apparently most of the ones I enjoy(ed) reading went on indefinite hiatus…
I love(d) the tales Ed told his readers about his ruin huntings in Ireland on Ed Mooney Photography, all accompanied by his amazing photographs.
I enjoy(ed) the different essays about books, readers and reading the girls of BiblioSmile’s wrote – and yes I still haven’t finished their reading challenge from 2014
The one who is still, albeit randomly, updating is Eve Estelle with her collection of self written poetry and fiction.
And some others still in my Blog Roll „Where I enjoy reading“ the bottom…
But, I guess that’s enough for some exploring. 😉
Those were the questions!
Hope you had fun reading them. 🙂

Greetings from Vienna, where I don’t really have access to my Blog and probably can’t accept your comments until I return.
PoiSonPaiNter
* Questions were translated by me.

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… 🙁

Three Years

Today marks the third anniversary of my Blog.
Another year has passed and I’m still blogging.
It was a really good year, until it got quite awful towards the end and any improvement will probably take a while.
But that’s beside the point.
Today I’ll announce the winner of my little raffle a few weeks back in honour of my 200th post and this anniversary as well.

As a reminder the prices were as follows:

#3: A Clue Writing Story written from your clues (setting + five clues)
#2: A Story written from a title you chose or for a picture you took.
#1: A Story of whichever category you like (e.g. clues, title, picture, even a Fanfic would be alright)
And without further ado let’s skip to the good part:

The Drawing

For quite a while I had only two participants DarkFairy and Gabriele.
The third participant commented earlier this day and was lucky to write before I finished this post.
Yet, as that one only left me with an „XXX“ as name and an E-Mail address that looks fake am I not able to include her/him in the drawing. (Though I do have a suspicion of who might be behind that alias…)
Therefore the race is between Fairy and Gabriele and is concluded by the throw of a dice.
If the dice lands on an even number: Gabriele wins the first place.
If the dice lands on an uneven number: Fairy wins the first place.
As I don’t have a physical dice here – at least I can’t think of a place where I put one – I will use this side: Virtual Dice.
So, let’s role….

And the Winner is…

Gabriele!

That leaves Fairy for place #2!

Congratulations!

As for you „XXX“, if you’re participation wasn’t just a ruse, I will grant you the third place and for the next time, please use real contact data – at least for the duration of the competition, afterwards it can be changed to fake data.
For all of you these rules still apply:

  • With this post and the upcoming comment to your comment I have informed you of your price. If I don’t hear back from any of you within a week the price will be assigned anew – or due to the lack of participants: cease to exist.
  • Suggestions for either of the prices have to be decent (no propaganda for violence, racism, pornography, etc.)
    • In case of the picture: You have to own the rights to it.
    • In case of the Fanfic: It would be nice if you choose a Fandom and characters I know.
  • The Story will be written in a reasonable time frame ranging from one week  until six months after receiving the instructions (Sorry, I can’t say how things will work out during the next few months). Further delays will be announced.
  • The Story will be as long as I see fit, but at least 800 words.

 
I’m curious what stories await me.
And maybe for the next anniversary I think up something better than a story.
Cheers, to the new year!
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

Two Years…

Today it’s been two years since I announced my „Hello World“ on this Blog.
And as always: I nearly forgot about this in the first place…
I knew it was sometime towards the end of February and today I just remembered that I wanted to look it up.
According to the „Trophy“ I got last year from WordPress the anniversary is on the 21st, but the first post was published today, so that is the proper day…and I just got this years trophy to prove my point.
Anyway.
Two years aren’t really a big milestone to pass (not like the ones I mentioned in this post), but if you are as easily sidetracked as me, than it is something to accomplish…
I mean, I started this Blog to write stuff down and have a side to collect all my writings and in these two years a lot of things have happened that could have caused me to stop working on this.
You can see that by the amount of stuff I have posted within this two years, as I mentioned before: I merely managed to write about 50 posts in two years…
Apart from the fact that I need to be in a writing mood, I think the biggest problem is, that I don’t like short posts. They just feel weird. If I really have a topic I can easily fill about a thousand words, but if I just have a short thing to say and the post is shorter than that, it is kind of strange. Though I don’t think this post will be that long either…

But what have I accomplished in these two years and what do I plan to do now?

Hmm…I’m not sure about either…
I kind of finished studying (though I haven’t gotten my final mark yet)…
I kind of started to write a bit more regularly (at least once a week)…
I kind of visited a few places and managed to write about or still have to write about it…
The how, in the schedule and stuff however still is a mystery to me…
But I’ll think up something…I guess…
And now I’m already at a loss of what else to write about concerning this anniversary…
Guess I’ll just end with a bit more than four hundred words for a change and hope I will continue with this Blog a bit longer, as it is a nice companion down the road of life.
See you around
PoiSonPaiNter