I begin by writing paragraphs that donโt have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.
Grace PaleyPeople say, "Why do you call your kids up, why do you worry like that?" And I say, "I was raised like that." My grandmother looked at my father with the same eyes when he was sixty and she was eighty-five.
Grace PaleyI might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want to do. You don't always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.
Grace Paley