I realize at this point in my career, that I'm not quite where I would really like to be, although much closer than I used to. Most would agree that working for an advertising agency is a sign of success in itself, but I'm not the agency's creative director, nor do I do much of what I enjoy the most: illustration. I'm more of a production studio guy here, and the resident technical web expert / web integrator. And this being a small agency, I'm a jack-of-all-trades who deals with some video editing, storyboards, helping out the overloaded print designers and I'm the network administrator by default. All the work we do here is corporate and I do get bored often.

I meet people who work for fun magazines, full-time illustrators, creative directors and game industry creatives and it seems like I don't have the skills to do their jobs full-time. Most of these people are my age or younger, and many have had training in their areas, whereas I practicaly learned everything on my own, thus it took me longer than them.

In addition to my fulltime job, I occasionaly take on website design gigs (design and programming, the whole thing) and the odd illustration gig. I feel I need to keep my skills fresh by doing this extra work. I also feel that keeping active in freelancing provides some security in case my fulltime employer(s) go belly up, as it has happened before.

However, I have realized some of my dreams: I managed to successfully self-publish my own comic book series, with proper distribution. I also got to work on the legendary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books and have designed some fun record covers for bands I enjoy.

So where does this leave me? I have all these personal projects I still want to do, but they all fall into the last category: comics and illustration, the stuff I can't really make a living from.

I could devote more energy and devotion to my employers and climb that profesional ladder, becoming the creative director I feel I *ought* to be, but still feel I lack the managerial skills, but this takes up much dedication that I wouldn't otherwise devote to those personal projects I still hope to make a living from at some point.

It's like walking a line that won't give me the satisfaction of either direction I might take, yet afraid to sacrifice too much of one for the other...

In addition to this, I haven't met anyone with whom I can relate on this level, but that's another story...