Feeling odd...

[merimask]

Hmm.  I'm feeling a bit off lately.

 

I think I've been doing too much again.  I'm all at odds with myself because I feel stressed out but I'm not sure why I should.

I have orders to make...plenty of them.  This is good because orders = money, but I'm daunted by how many there are and that causes me to procrastinate.  So, I'm creating without joy right now, in fits and spurts when I can force myself to do it.

I'm definitely escaping on my bike too much...just putting on my i-pod and taking off.  Sometimes that's good because Char comes with me, which is sweet.  Sometimes I'm all alone and I don't realize how fast or far I'm going until I pull up in a daze with a cramp.  That's not excercise.  That's running away.

I mean, it's silly to feel this way.  Working is good...I'd be lost without it.  And of course everyone knows I love to ride my bike.  I'm just feeling a bit unbalanced and stretched thin lately, like a watery pancake mix.  Like I might break. 

Also, I'm sabotaging myself.  I'm playing video games instead of reading a book.  I'm thinking about getting old, quite a bit.  This is really starting to bug me, the getting old thing.  I look in the mirror and my face doesn't match my spirit, and I can be vain so...it bothers me.  More than that, it frightens me.   It's not like you wake up one day and, surprise; you're seventy.  It happens slowly, and lately I'm seeing the new lines my face will fall into as I age and I'm seeing my grandmother...my own mom.   The clues are there and they scare me.  I'm not ready for old age, the same way I'm never ready for winter in November each year.  

Is this a midlife crisis I wonder?  It's not as fun as I'd heard.  I thought it'd mean I'd go to Europe alone, or have a fling, or install a hot tub or buy a motorcycle.  Instead I just feel anxious and stretched thin.  Hmm.

 

But enough whining.  I need some practical advice.  For any of you out there with DevArt accounts; how many comments do you reply to?  All of them?  Just the first page?  I have a monster of a backlog of comments and I always try to at least say "thanks" but the sheer amount is so massive that it'd take hours to do at this point. 

Also, another DA question...I'm getting a LOT of "Ooo I want to make that" comments.  Which of course is copyright infringement.  Like, to the point where kids are contacting me, asking for my PATTERNS so they can TRY TO MAKE A MASK.  Now, I don't own the idea of maskmaking, heck no.  But I sure as hell do own my mask designs.  Should I continue to ignore these comments (which is what I've been doing so far) or do I come down on these kids like the wrath of god?  Surely they must be kids.  Adults wouldn't dare suggest something like that to an artist...would they?  I suspect I'd be accused of being a bitch if I explain copyright law to a 13 year old kid who really likes my dragon, so I'm reluctant to be honest with anyone there.   
 

Comments

[justrambles.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Explain to them. I run a site for teenage writers, and they're quite capable of understanding copyright laws. We come down on them HARD if they break that, whether they break it in writing, art, or anything else. Most of them take it fine and say 'oh ok, I'm sorry, I didn't know', and I point them in the direction of some info on copyright law, and ask them how they'd feel if someone stole their work. Sometimes they go nuts. The worst I've had was some kid who thought it was hilarious, and after I banned him, he posted my novel on another site with just the name of the main character changed. After that I tracked him down on every writing site he was a member of and warned the admins. Unfortunately most didn't care (he's now a moderator at one of the sites!). So, that's my long-winded way of saying you should try to prevent it before it happens. Personally I'd go the way of putting some standard spiel in the description of each deviation that effectively says 'thanks for admiring, but no, you can't make one'.

As for being old and answering lots of comments, I don't have those problems, so I have no advice.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Being in business for myself, though...it scares me to have loose cannons running around out there. I bend over backwards trying to be helpful because word of mouth in my business is EVERYthing. To gave disgruntled kids out there saying I'm mean and I won't share my work...how to I prevent that from happening? I either share and the kidlings are happy (and suddenly there are a thousand crappy knock-offs of my designs out there, flooding the market & leading people to think I'm overpriced) or I don't and I get assassinated online, possibly. I mean, examples of vengeful people who troll online are everywhere, right? I'd hate to become another statistic. It's a fine line to walk.