The Official Blog of A. E. Costello

Black Speculative Fiction: Why I Write It

Spring 2018, I took the English course that would change my views on being a writer and author. The class in question was Studies in Genre: Black Speculative Fiction, taught by Dr. Stacy Boyd. Before his class, I had never heard of black speculative fiction. That includes I didn’t know who Octavia Butler was or…

NaNoWriMo: Day 7

It’s Day 7 of National Novel Writing Month and my overall progress looks like this: Not very awe-inspiring. And the fact that I have less than three thousand words when I should have around ten thousand by now brought me to the obvious conclusion that the story I’ve been working on for so long is…

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

Day 1 The goal is 2000 words a day. Today I wrote six words. That is not the goal set by the NaNoWriMo team. That word goal is 1,667. I chose 2000 because Stephen King in his book On Writing explained he writes at the minimum 2000 words a day, and won’t end the day…

National Novel Writing Month Prep

Have you heard of National Novel Writing Month? If you haven’t, I’ll tell you. The thirty days of November is a challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, to write a full-length novel in one month. It started in 1999, and while its internet-based, the program includes a lot more than thousands of people…

Get Writing Done: Set Deadlines

Writer’s Digest, a popular American magazine that focuses on writers and writing advice, has a pdf article called “Why A Writer Without a Deadline is Looking for Trouble.” It’s a downloadable link that you can find at the end of this post. Every time I slow down with my writing, procrastinate more and more, start…

Intentions Don’t Write Books

One day during conversation, a woman, let’s call her Lacy, asked me how I went about self-publishing my debut novel The Other Side, as she wanted to publish her book. I told her the process I went through with self-publishing through KDP. After, I asked Lacy about her book that she wants to publish. Lacy…