I was first introduced to Octavia Butler when I was in a book club and we read Kindred. I had just started on my writing journey and I devoured the book. Then I got my hands on everything I could find that this author had wrote and officially fell in love with all of her words.

My ultimate experience was when Octavia Butler came to Spelman College here in Atlanta for a talk and I got her to sign my book.



I’m currently reading Conversations with Octavia Butler, which is a collection of interviews curated by Conseula Francis. I’ve been reading this volume very slowly, savoring Octavia’s words and letting them marinate.

This past weekend, I read an interview that originally appeared in Callaloo magazine in 1997. She talks about talent and how would-be writers always struggle if they have it. She also has an essay about this same subject, “Furor Scribendi” from her collection Bloodchild: And Other Stories.

I wanted to share this particular passage — because it speaks so much to the truth of the writing craft:

Writing is very personal and it does hurt sometimes to be told that something is wrong with some work you really love and feel is perfect. Your writing is an expression of your inner feelings and thoughts and beliefs and self. One of the reasons it is difficult to learn to write professionally is that that kind of thing is so painful; rejection is so painful. It sounds as though you are personally being rejected, and in a sense you are — no matter how much somebody tells you not to worry, “It’s not you; it’s just the work.” But the work is you; so it hurts. You need to go through that, and you never really stop going through that, even though you’ve learned to write professionally; you go on learning. If you don’t go on learning, then your writing becomes stale, and you do the same thing over and over again.