About a year ago I was writing for Adobe Illustrator Techniques, even did a mini-sidebar for Layers Magazine and was on, what I consider, a cusp in the direction my career was going. I could choose to be come more of an educator and write tutorials and articles hoping to find someone to make use of them, or continue with design and illustration the way I've always done with occasional writing thrown in.

People often ask me why they don't see me writing much anymore. Well, the opportunities don't come along that often and I'm generally busy with design projects. Of course, I'd make room for writing when needed. Thinking of my career path though. I realized that I had to somewhat choose to either primarily be an educator and create when the opportunity arose. Or focus on creating and write when possible. I chose the latter because what I love... what really gets me excited, is creation and design. I get a definite sense of fulfillment when I deliver a project and it's loved. Much more so than writing an article where there's often little or no feedback. A byline just doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling that it does others.

While I do love to share what I know and help others, I realized that's not what I wanted to do full time. It becomes a mill... cranking out the same answers to the same questions in a new way. In fact, it can really be stressful to repeat the same topics without repeating what you've said before. Not to mention worrying about what others have said on the topic and not wanting to repeat them.

So, I do still enjoy writing and honestly wish I did it a bit more. But I don't focus on it regularly. I do still write when the opportunity presents itself. In fact, I've even considered writing a book or manual focusing on Illustrator if I can find an angle that is unique. I mean, face it, Illustrator books are a dime a dozen and they all cover the same application so they cover the same basic content. I'm sure my approach would be unique because, well, I'm not any of those writers. But I get hung up because I don't want to just crank out another Illustrator book and then update it for each new version released. I'd rather do something memorable and unique. But, I've been considering it.