To observe the world carefully, to write a lot and often, on a schedule if necessary, to use the dictionary a lot, to look up word origins, to analyze closely the work of writers you admire, to read not only contemporaries but writers of the past, to learn at least one foreign language, to live an interesting life outside of writing.
Lydia DavisBut it is curious how you can see that an idea is absolutely true and correct and yet not believe it deeply enough to act on it.
Lydia DavisThe style developed over decades, really, but I started out writing pretty traditional stories, then became impatient. It was a writer named Russell Edson who showed me that one could write in any way at all.
Lydia DavisI don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.
Lydia DavisWe all have an ongoing narrative inside our heads, the narrative that is spoken aloud if a friend asks a question. That narrative feels deeply natural to me. We also hang on to scraps of dialogue. Our memories donโt usually serve us up whole scenes complete with dialogue. So I suppose Iโm saying that I like to work from what a character is likely to remember, from a more interior place.
Lydia Davis