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" Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere. "
Octavia Butler
Look
Science Fiction
Science
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" Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. "
Octavia Butler
Art
Silence
People
" I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership. "
Octavia Butler
Leadership
Attention
Will
" I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people. "
Octavia Butler
Slavery
Trying
People
" Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish. "
Octavia Butler
Heaven
Alive
Religion
" I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black. "
Octavia Butler
Time
Experience
Family
" I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining. "
Octavia Butler
Science
Science Fiction
You
" And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy. "
Octavia Butler
Way
Science
Point
" I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things. "
Octavia Butler
Me
Savage
Things
" So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy. "
Octavia Butler
Early
Fantasy
First
" Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them. "
Octavia Butler
Write
Always
Writing
" I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time. "
Octavia Butler
Writing
Science
Same
" On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that. "
Octavia Butler
Dance
Hand
Human
" But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. "
Octavia Butler
Problems
Horror
Problem
" Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it. "
Octavia Butler
Yourself
Public
You
" You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. "
Octavia Butler
Good
Persistence
Writing
" Most of us don't have to worry about being shot if we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility. "
Octavia Butler
Us
Worry
Writing
" The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way. "
Octavia Butler
Science
Science Fiction
Way
" No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly. "
Octavia Butler
Doing
Business
Long
" No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities. "
Octavia Butler
Future
Think
People
" I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early. "
Octavia Butler
Got
Early
Conscience
" I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell. "
Octavia Butler
Stories
Just
Knew
" What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way. "
Octavia Butler
Story
Vampire
Born
" While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything. "
Octavia Butler
Country
Book
Direction
" I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that. "
Octavia Butler
Attention
Too
Never
" And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing. "
Octavia Butler
Writing
Day
Excuses
" Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you. "
Octavia Butler
Alone
Hurt
Help
" Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about. "
Octavia Butler
Rules
You
Writing
" Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day. "
Octavia Butler
Feedback
Work
People
" A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't. "
Octavia Butler
Young
Way
Think
" People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me. "
Octavia Butler
Like
Me
Whatever