I hear word today that the very first copies of my book, “Shut Your Monkey: How to Control Your Inner Critic and Get More Done” areĀ finally being delivered to readers by Amazon. If you’d like to get a copy, order one today…. if your monkey will let you!
Here’s a piece I just wrote for Thought Catalog,
I know I promised to eschew advertising on my blog but, come on, people, it’s in my blood! I can’t help it. So here’re a few announcements, updates and, yes, ads about things I’m doing that you might like. to know about.
ā¢ First, a mini filmĀ about an innovation at Sketchbook Skool.
The gist: Sketchbook SkoolĀ kourses are now available on-demand rather than by semester. Sign up and plunge in any day of the year.Ā We’re like Orange is the New BlackĀ āĀ but with a full palette of colors.
ā¢ Next, an excitingĀ announcement: we have just completedĀ the final nips and tucks to the design of Shut Your Monkey: How to control your inner critic and get more done and it heads to the printer nextĀ Tuesday! You can preorder your copy today, however.
ā¢ My other new book, the Art Before Breakfast Workbook has just come back from myĀ editor and I am ready to continueĀ work on the design phase of the book. It looks quite gorgeous already, I must say.
ā¢ On Saturday night, I will strap myself into a Lufthansa flight to Switzerland to Ā work with the students, teachers and parents of the International School of Basel. I have been working on lots of little films and projects to inspire them and can’t wait to see the art we make together during my artist-in-residency.
I am also excited to see Basel which I hear is brimming with dozens of amazing museums. I also plan to eat chocolate. I’ll post news of my trip here, maybe even before I get back.
ā¢ Next, I will RyanAirĀ to Rome to spend a few days with Jack who has just begun hisĀ semester abroad (he’s in Abruzzo today). He has promised he will take me to his favorite places to draw. We also plan to eat pasta.
Ciao!
After three years of thinkingĀ and writing, Shut Your Monkey is finally complete. The words are written, the illustrations are completed and the layout is stunning. We just sent the final files to my editors this week and the book will soon head to the printer andĀ be in your handsĀ before Thanksgiving.
The hardest part of creating a new book is working out the cover design. Ā No matter how many fancy adjectives I’ve used, no matter how many revisions I’ve written, in the end,Ā we knowĀ the bookĀ willĀ be judged by the cover.
While I have designed most of my books, I wanted to make sure that we pulled out all the stops for Shut Your Monkey.Ā I was lucky enough to enlist the help of one of the top book designers in New York. Ā Rachel Willey and I batted ideas around for most of the spring and summerĀ and she producedĀ through dozens and dozens of designs. Finally, we and my publishers agreed on a winner. It is fantastic and if you’d like to have a copy of your own, you can preorder it (and the book inside it) right now.
Here is a small selectionĀ from the design process.
I am taking off from my blog today ā to work on illustrations for “Shut Your Monkey.”
See you on Saturday.
I just wanted to tell you that, though I have not been very active hereĀ of late, it’s mainly because Koosje and Morgan and I have been beavering away on several important projects we will soon reveal. I think they will please you. I sure hope so.
I also want toĀ thank you so muchĀ for supporting the release of Art Before Breakfast. You have managed to thrill my publisher into wanting me to immediately do other exciting new things ā which I will tell you more about as they gel.
Meanwhile, we are waiting for our container ship-full of freshly printed copiesĀ to be unloaded onto the Los Angeles docks (which just concluded a long and bad-for-books-and-other-goods strike) and soon the shortage of Arts B4 Breakfast will end (I myself have but a single dog-eared copy)
Also, youĀ (but not my monkey) will be heartened to know that my manuscript for “Shut Your Monkey: How to control your inner critic and get more done” is in my (other) publisher’s hands and will be hitting the shelves this autumn. Thanks you everyone who sent me their monkey tales. They added delicious fodder to my book.
In sum, Spring is finally springing here in New York and many lovely new things are blooming. Details to follow.
I would love your help.
I am working on my next book. It is called ‘Shut Your Monkey‘ and is about the little voice in your head that criticizes and scolds and warns and limits you. It especially plagues creative people.
If you are familiar with this voice, would you mind sending me stories about how it has impacted you, how it may have stopped you from taking a particular path or interrupted your work.
I AM MOST INTERESTED IN SPECIFIC STORIES OF HOW THE MONKEY EFFECTED YOU, not just strategies for fighting it.
I would be most grateful to learn about your experiences and will protect your anonymity if you want me to.
Please email me your stories to danny@dannygregory.com.
Thanks!!
Long after his death, Vincent van Gogh has been diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia to syphilis. He may have been bipolar or epileptic, eaten too much paint or drunk too much absinthe. Did van Gogh hear the voice of the inner critic, that toxic monkey endlessly jabbering in his head? Certainly. He had plenty of problems and one or more of them led to the events of 27th of July, 1890, when he shot himself, in the chest, in a wheat field. He hung around for another day and a half, said, āThe sadness will last foreverā and died.
Van Gogh was 37 and he had been painting for just ten years. In that time he accomplished so much, producing hundreds of beautiful works of art that have influenced artists ever since. His life, short though it was, left ripples.
But what if he hadnāt cut his life so short? What if he had lived to 86 like Monet? Or 84 like Matisse? Or 91 like Picasso? What might he have accomplished if heād lived a full and complete life? What paintings might now hang in museums? What directions might he have taken the art world? How might we all see differently than we do? Try to imagine all he never had the chance to imagine.
So much beautiful art has been made through the course of human history. But there is so much beautiful art that never was made, never sketched or painted or framed or hung. The monkey voice does the job of that pistol in Auvers-sur-Oise every day, cutting creative careers short, stifling ideas, throwing up roadblocks to new horizons. Every time the monkey forces a creative person to give up, the world is robbed of ideas that could lead to more ideas that could lead to answers and inspiration and gasps of delight.
The fact is, you canāt know what impact your work could have on the world. Donāt let the monkey decide for you.
Itās tempting to blame limitations for limiting us.
To wish we had more resources, more time, more help, more talent.
But thereās never enough ā and you donāt need it.
Limitations free your efforts and creativity, help you avoid being overwhelmed by infinite possibilities.
If you have no rules, you have no game.
If you have no gravity, no seasons, no wind and rain, you cannot grow.
All creativity work with limits.
Pushing against them moves us to new places.
Limits build up pressure that pops us into new dimensions
Hemingway used just 26 letters.
Miles had but three valves on his horn.
Painters limit themselves with canvas size, with the colors on their palettes, with the history of the artists that precede them.
Binary code limits engineers to just 111s and 000s. That limitation produced the computer youāre reading this on.
Shakespeare didnāt use iambic pentameter just to produce plays with iambic pentameter.
He used it to force himself to use new words which expressed new ideas.
How can you limit yourself?
Danny Gregory 