Octavia Estelle Butler

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:
1. Don’t leave your home without a notebook, paper scraps, something to write with.
1. Don’t walk into the world without your eyes and ears focused and open.
1. 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)