Wednesday links

I love regularly reading tips and advice articles in certain subjects — particularly writing and publishing. I don’t always need the information right then, but I know that it’ll eventually come in handy. Or at least, I hope it will.

I know there are a lot of other people out there who feel the same way I do, but sometimes it can be difficult to find every useful advice article that’s out there. So I thought I’d bring you a few.

Here are the tips and advice articles that jumped out at me the most over the past week.

1. Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Share Your Work with The World, from The Write Life: This applies to novels, of course, but it also applies to pretty much any other project you take on. The longer you wait to show others what you’ve accomplished, the more opportunities you could end up missing. Excerpt: “Hurdling these self-imposed obstacles is challenging, but it’s the only way to share your work with the world. I learned this lesson the hard way, but hopefully my story can inspire you to take action.”

2. Arm Yourself with CASTS, from Writer Unboxed: When you’re editing, you definitely want to look at your novel as a whole. But it’s also important to take a close look at each of your individual chapters. Excerpt: “But what about individual chapters, which, after all, are the building blocks of your story? Is there a format? How do you know if you’re doing it right? Frankly, that’s usually where I have problems.”

And a bonus: 7 Unconventional Reasons Why You Absolutely Should Be Reading Books, from The Huffington Post: Most people enjoy reading because of the entertainment factor they get out of it. But, as it turns out, reading can also be really good for your health. Excerpt: “In a world of omnipresent screens, it can be easy to forget the simple pleasure of curling up with a good book. In fact, a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1,000 U.S. adults found that 28 percent hadn’t read one at all in the past year. But the truth is that reading books can be more than entertainment (or a high school English assignment). “