It struck me today that everyone who practices multiple disciplines (usually motherhood, work and some kind of hobby) talks about balance. I don’t work the way they say I’m supposed to. You’re supposed to focus on one thing for a really long time and make it really successful before moving on to something else. But is it really wrong to work on projects in short bursts and then leave it for a while?

Maybe they’re right but if they are and that’s the only way to be successful then I’m just never going to be. The thing about balance for me is that the first ingredient seems to be that you have to have a definition of what success looks like. I don’t really. I mean one part of it is that I want a lot of people to see my art and read what I write but the other part is that I want a lot of people to buy my designs but I’ve never wanted one more than the other.

The point of all this is that I feel really guilty because of the way I work because of the way the rest of the world says I should work. That’s all.

In the past few weeks I seem to have forgotten that I am a designer. It’s hard when you design for yourself sometimes. I don’t have a constant supply of motivation as if I were working for someone else and yet I have more motivation for designing for my store than I would if I were doing it just to try and get other people’s approval. It’s an anomaly that I would like to know happens to other people but I’ve never heard of it.

Business models are changing slowly across a variety of professions and design is no exception. The problem is that when you are on the cusp of major changes in an industry the money is not soon to follow. But then I have to ask myself is money even the real motivation? I mean I have kept this blog and writing articles for Associated Content despite the money. I sent product samples to promote the store even though I had to spend money and take a significant loss. I have 276 products in the store and have totally redeisgned everything multiple times just because I like it.

Money obviously has nothing to do with it. Don’t get me wrong I have sold quite a few things from the store and some of those have been quite unexpected but I just wish there was something in it that seemed like it would really take off and be worth something to more than just me. My travel overseas later this year is definitely going to be some inspiration for me and hopefully will yield some more new designs. I had a goal which I didn’t reach for the store but I’m extending it to the end of the year so I’m looking forward to reaching it.

Visit Miss Fish Designs and tell me what you think.

I’m really worried about taking three months off of blogging/writing while overseas. I guess I will have to write stuff down on paper instead of in the comforting glow of my lappy for that time.

It will be the only time I’m overseas without a lappy though I can tell you that right now.

That is all.

I’ve only got one more weekend and 11 more week days until I leave for my 6 month training consisting of three months in Monroe, NC and three months overseas working with women, children, refugees, the homeless etc.

During this time I will continue writing but probably not so much published work as I have been doing as of lately. If you would like more details and different updates than you will find here join my e-mail update list. E-mail me at missfishdesigns@yahoo.com with Email Update List in the subject. I’m going to be sending updates at least once a month but sometimes more often and they will be different than the things I’ll be posting here.

As many of you I’m Christian and I have been for 3 years and that is the primary reason for going on this trip. I also plan to move overseas permanently after I return from this training I intend to continue art and writing of course along side the human rights issues I am passionate about.

I’m worried. There I said it. I know that you’re not supposed to mention things like this in public but I am. I have two weeks before I leave for a small school in Charlotte, NC at which I will be for 6 months. 3 of those months will be overseas at an undisclosed location (undisclosed to me not only to you I actually don’t know).

I’m worried because since January I have gotten into this routine of losing weight and writing. I hate routines and I try to avoid them at all costs because I have been trying to loosen the chains of domesticity so I can travel but it’s nearly impossible to write without a routine of some sort. I’m worried that when I leave all this will stop. I don’t know if I’ll be able to write when I leave.

Blah blah blah. I know it’s irritating when posts like this get written but this is what’s going on.

How’s this for a Techie Weekend? I discovered the problem with what happened to my old lappy. I knew that it got a virus which basically wiped out its memory of ever having an operating system and I sort of knew where I got the virus but it wasn’t until today that I found out where the virus was installed–within Mozilla Firefox!

I was shocked today when I came upon that same virus on a different site from the one on which I got it the first time. I scanned my lappy immediately and got rid of the malicious file–or so I thought!

When I went to open Firefox again the same virus window popped up before I ever got to go to a site! That was when I realized it installed itself inside Firefox. I uninstalled Firefox immediately and I won’t be installing it again now that I know it can be infected that easily.

Thank Google for Chrome!

And if you’re wondering my virus programs I use are Defender Pro and Win Cleaner.

I have been turning my nose up for some time at Twitter clients but that was until I discovered TweetDeck. Since I have wi-fi at home now I tend to try out desktop programs which require the internet more often than I used to because the internet is always on. TweetDeck is a desktop app for updating Twitter that lets you display multiple Twitter accounts at once or display one Twitter account and multiple searches all in one window and in a customizable interface which is also very attractive without customization.

There are several online Twitter clients as well but I haven’t tried them and most of them don’t have the features of TweetDeck. The only problem with TweetDeck is that you can’t view your followers list which means that you can never really break away from Twitter’s actual website but you can see how many followers you have which is a good thing.

So that’s it for Techie Weekend this week! Follow me on Twitter @worldgirl84

One of the things I love most about being a writer (besides the writing) is reading about writing (second only to watching movies about writers but that’s a totally different topic). It is through this pursuit that I discovered a neat little blog called Writers in the Virtual Sky. WITVS is run by a writer named Joan Kremer. It was through this blog that I found out about all the opportunities in Second Life for writers. I joined Second Life a year ago but never got anywhere with it much because I didn’t know what I was doing, I never really wanted to be one of those people so I didn’t touch it again after my first couple of login’s.

But since becoming a writer/artist I have been looking for as many writing/artistic opportunities as possible preferably free and definitely preferably online so I was surprised to find her blog is filled with opportunities such as these on Second Life. I don’t know why I had never put the two together as if there’s no one on SL (doi!) but I would love to publicly thank Joan Kremer for an amazing blog and a great starting place for Second Life event seekers.

So amongst my newest filmmaking and writing adventures I am adding trying a lot of things from her blog like Twitter chat and Second Life to my writing exploration. Will keep you posted on that.

I had a problem with After Effects yesterday. Not just any problem it was a huge problem. Possibly the biggest problem you can have with a video editing program. The footage I imported showed up as a black frame with sound. That can’t be edited.

As per usual with Adobe’s built-in help files I couldn’t find any mention of this particular problem so I had to Google it. Luckily Google worked better than After Effects and one of the first things that came up was the solution to the problem!

This problem is a codec problem which basically means that the operating system and the program aren’t cooperating (in my case this is no surprise as I have Vista) so all I had to do to fix it was download the K-Lite Codec Pack 5.05 from filehippo.com it was incredibly easy and worked immediately. You can totally customize it but I didn’t have to do anything to it. The main thing I would reccommend is that you make sure that anything to do with the file type you’re having trouble with is checked during the installation in my case this was .avi and there did end up being a few .avi related features that don’t install automatically.

It’s lovely when people actually want to help with a project especially when you ask them to but I definitely see why so many artists go out of their way to get their own spaces. The experience I’m having now starting my film series is definitely enough to make me realise the value of owning or renting art space for my own projects in future.

Actually having this space has been a dream of mine for a while but the reasons why had not become apparent until I decided to jump in and try these two projects that I’m working on now and ultimately the big It Girl Films project with it. On an experimental level I feel like I know a little more about what some big directors and artists are talking about when they talk about taking over their own projects and not having to bend to other people’s wishes for their projects. I’ve never really had to do that outside of school before and now I find myself having to battle my way through everyone’s suggestions and persuasions.

Don’t get me wrong I know that most of these people are trying to help and it’s great I’ve accepted a lot of that help because being totally closed off to other people is not what successful artists do but I suppose I feel like since I have had to compromise a small part of one project that it’s not totally mine in that way. On the other hand I think the finished project will be mine and reflect my original idea and I know I’m coming out of it with some new knowledge of why I want some of the things I want and maybe even the seeds of how to get there.

I am definitely going to write more behind the scenes type entries about It Girl Films and my current projects. So stay tuned.