Steal Our Bookmarks: On Storytelling

When it comes to sharing your art, a great story goes a long way to connecting with your community. Writing about your work can be an intimidating task, but it's easier when you have a healthy dose of inspiration.

At Big Cartel, we're just a group of artists trying to share our own story. So you can see what's inspiring us and apply some of these ideas to your own stories, here's a collection of our bookmarked articles, videos, and books on storytelling.

The Middle of Things: Advice for Young Writers by Andrew Solomon: "To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquility, as if eternity lay before them."

Whether you're a writer or not, Jacqueline Lara shares why every artist should be a great storyteller.

Next time you've got a bad case of writer's block, check out these prompts from Death to the Stock Photo.

Ta-Nehisi Coates advice to aspiring writers: "Breakthroughs come from putting an inordinate amount of pressure on yourself and seeing what you can take."

If you pick up two books on writing, grab Everybody Writes by Ann Handley and Nicely Said by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee.

After you've put in the work, don't forget creative rest is important, too!