Good Morning America! Have you been watching the news? Are you shaken up yet? Has the news made you question your work and your security? I have been a bit obsessed with watching CNN and Fox news and have even taken to tevoing Glenn Beck! Stop the madness, Monica! But I am ultimately a practical person and sometimes I can't understand how my creative self works with my practical self. But all this has lead me to thinking about my career over the next year. I made a leap into licensing this year and am quite committed to it. This has not stopped me from my editorial illustration but I am in a quandary about where and how to spend my marketing dollar. If I concentrate on licensing designs will there be manufacturers still around to produce what I create? If I really focus on editorial art I have to ask myself if advertising budgets with still be large enough to hire illustrators at a decent rate of pay? Should I jump in the pool and start selling stock art? I don't know that I am adamantly against stock art but I always wonder if people actually follow the usage rights that they agree to when they buy the art. Time is a serious commodity for and artist and every artist I know has a big list of to-do's that they try to get to in between actual paying jobs. When I made the commitment to focus on licensing last January, I sat my husband down and told him that some of my regular salary might drop since I needed to spend the time building up my portfolio of designs for licensing. He was completely supportive and still is but now I am second guessing myself. What if it takes even longer than I planned to establish myself, what if, what if? Is this the bad news on Main Street (I HATE that term!) talking? Am I considering a redirection of my current path because I am trying to practical or scared? How has this news about the economy been making you feel? Here is a design that I created for a fashion illo. I then mocked it up for plates and napkins and I liked it so much I had stationery made for myself using the same design.