Each Friday, I send advice, ideas, stories and tips to 25K creative people like you. Author of 13 best-selling books on creativity. Founder of Sketchbook Skool w 50k+ students
👨🏻🦳 Snow on the Roof
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I’ve noticed that my hair has become more and more white. Perhaps you've noticed it, too. It could be the stress of the last few years. Or maybe I’ve just become saltier. Less peppery. It's probably just genes. For as long as I knew him, my grandfather had white hair, too. He rocked it well. I kinda like the fact that I'm not in-between any longer. I'm not grey. I’m not middle-aged. I'm an old guy now. I have wrinkles on my face, a Medicare card, and a couple of brown spots. And this white hair. I've never been afraid of getting old. In fact, when I was a kid, I wanted to be old. I thought it seemed powerful, wise, cool. And indifferent to most of the crap that bugged me and my peers. Sure, there have been times when I wished my knees and my back were still young. But I like the longer perspective these decades have brought me. The lessons learned. The experience I can share. And knowing that whatever it is, this too shall pass. Your pal, Danny |
Danny Gregory: I help you make art again
Each Friday, I send advice, ideas, stories and tips to 25K creative people like you. Author of 13 best-selling books on creativity. Founder of Sketchbook Skool w 50k+ students
These days, I seem to get a lot of emails from readers sharing their anxieties. I get it. These are stressful times. When I feel anxious, or restless, or just overwhelmed, you know what makes me feel better? Drawing. It doesn’t fix everything, but it helps a lot. Here’s why. Most of the time, when life is difficult, our brains won’t stop spinning. We replay the past. We invent scary futures. We get stuck in the churn of “what ifs.” But when I sit down with my sketchbook, that cycle slows and...
A dozen years ago, I was sitting in a meeting in the New York Times building, right in the path of an avalanche. The Times sales team was showing us a new article they were about to publish: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen in a newspaper — interactive graphics, animated simulations, aerial video. It took six months to create and went on to win a Pulitzer and a Peabody. But in that room, it felt less like a triumph of journalism than a warning...
Last week, Jenny and I went to a new restaurant. We sat at the bar, hit it off with the bartender, and everything was perfect—until I spotted a typo on the cocktail list. “Pomagranite.” A tiny flaw in a flawless evening. Should I mention it? Would it feel like nitpicking? I thought about how I feel when someone writes me about a typo in one of my essays. I don’t mind—I’m grateful. It means they’re paying attention, that they trust me enough to point it out. It feels like collaboration, not...