Octavia Estelle Butler
Summary
- Born June 1947 in California
- Scifi author, winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards
Details
- She was painfully shy and intoverted, was bullied and thought she was "ugly and stupid, clumsy, socially hopeless"
- She spent hours in the Pasadena Central Library reading fairy tails, fantasy and sci-fi.
- Her teachers told her about her writing You're not even trying", “Why include the science fiction touch? I think the story would be more universal if you kept to the human, earthly touch.” “She has the understanding, but doesn’t apply it. She needs to learn self-discipline.”
- At 12 she watched a movie that was so terrible she knew she could do better, and started writing at every opportunity.
- She had 3 rules:
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- Don’t leave your home without a notebook, paper scraps, something to write with.
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- Don’t walk into the world without your eyes and ears focused and open.
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- Don’t make excuses about what you don’t have or what you would do if you did, use that energy to “find a way, make a way.”
- She tracked everything - her daily goals, page counts, wishes and dreams.
- In 2020, one of her novels made it to the NY Times best seller list (posthumously)