Butler would scrape together twenty-five cents to buy small Mead memo pads, and in those pages she took notes on every aspect of her life: grocery and clothes shopping lists, last-minute to-dos, wishes and intentions, and calculations of her remaining funds for rent, food, and utilities. She meticulously tracked her daily writing goals and page counts, lists of her failings and desired personal qualities, her wishes and dreams for the future, and contracts she would sign with herself each day for how many words she committed to write. Of course, Butler also gathered material for her fantastic
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