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The 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 Davis

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The Style Developed Over

Lydia Davis

...

The 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.

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If I Was Writing About An Academic Or A More Difficult Person, I Would Use The Latinate Vocabulary More, But I Do Think Anglo-saxon Is The Language Of Emotion.

We Feel An Affinity With A Certain Thinker Because We Agree With Him; Or Because He Shows Us What We Were Already Thinking; Or Because He Shows Us In A More Articulate Form What We Were Already Thinking; Or Because He Shows Us What We Were On The Point Of Thinking; Or What We Would Sooner Or Later Have Thought; Or What We Would Have Thought Much Later If We Hadn’t Read It Now; Or What We Would Have Been Likely To Think But Never Would Have Thought If We Hadn’t Read It Now; Or What We Would Have Liked To Think But Never Would Have Thought If We Hadn’t Read It Now.

We 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 Don’t Usually Serve Us Up Whole Scenes Complete With Dialogue. So I Suppose I’m Saying That I Like To Work From What A Character Is Likely To Remember, From A More Interior Place.

I Don't Feel I Have To Struggle Against Allegory. I Let The Readers Do The Interpreting.

Nearly Every Morning, A Certain Woman In Our Community Comes Running Out Of Her House With Her Face White And Her Overcoat Flapping Wildly. She Cries Out, "emergency, Emergency," And One Of Us Runs To Her And Holds Her Until Her Fears Are Calmed. We Know She Is Making It Up; Nothing Is Has Really Happened To Her. But We Understand, Because There Is Hardly One Of Us Who Has No Been Moved At Some Time To Do Just What She Has Done, And Every Time, It Has Taken All Our Strength, And Even The Strength Of Our Friends And Families, Too, To Keep Us Quiet.

Because I'm Not Writing All The Time (thank Goodness), My Mind Is Sometimes Pleasantly Blank.

I Started With Small-press Publishers, Who Were Willing To Publish All Sorts Of Forms. I Didn't Move To The Larger Presses Until They Knew What They Were Getting In For.

I Attempt All Day, At Work, Not To Think About What Lies Ahead, But This Costs Me So Much Effort That There Is Nothing Left For My Work. I Handle Telephone Calls So Badly That After A While The Switchboard Operator Refuses To Connect Me. So I Had Better Say To Myself, Go Ahead And Polish The Silverware Beautifully, Then Lay It Out Ready On The Sideboard And Be Done With It. Because I Polish It In My Mind All Day Long—this Is What Torments Me (and Doesn't Clean The Silver).

I Am Basically The Sort Of Person Who Has Stage-fright Teaching. I Kind Of Creep Into A Classroom. I'm Not An Anecdote-teller, Either, Although I Often Wish I Were.

The Translator, A Lonely Sort Of Acrobat, Becomes Confused In A Labyrinth Of Paradox, Or Climbs A Pyramid Of Dependent Clauses And Has To Invent A Way Down From It In His Own Language.

To Be Simple, I Would Say A Story Has To Have A Bit Of Narrative, If Only "she Says," And Then Enough Of A Creation Of A Different Time And Place To Transport The Reader.

There Is Something Very Pleasing About The Principles Of Science And The Rules Of Math, Because They Are So Inevitable And So Harmonious - In The Abstract, Anyway.

I Would Recommend, Definitely, Developing A 'day Job' That You Like - Don't Expect To Make Money Writing!

When I'm Trying A New Form- Trying To Do Something I'm Not Used To Doing, Which Was True Of The Novel.

The 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.

In Some Sense The Text And The Translator Are Locked In Struggle - 'i Attacked That Sentence, It Resisted Me, I Attacked Another, It Eluded Me' - A Struggle In Which, Curiously, When The Translator Wins, The Text Wins Too.

I Do See An Interest In Writing For Twitter. While Publishers Still Do Love The Novel And People Do Still Like To Sink Into One, The Very Quick Form Is Appealing Because Of The Pace Of Life.

Maybe The Truth Does Not Matter, But I Want To Know It If Only So That I Can Come To Some Conclusions About Such Questions As: Whether He Is Angry With Me Or Not; If He Is, Then How Angry; Whether He Still Loves Me Or Not; If He Does, Then How Much; Whether He Loves Me Or Not; How Much; How Capable He Is Of Deceiving Me In The Act And After The Act In The Telling.

I 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.

I Often Pose Questions To Myself And Want The Answers. The Questions May Be Psychological Or Emotional. Or They May Involve Botany Or [...] Physiology. [...] I Am Very Curious About Strangers I Observe - As In A Bus Line. I Am Very Attached To Finding Out Answers.

I'm Used To Rereading E-mails, Even, Before Sending Them - A Bit Compulsive. So This Is High Speed Roller Coaster For Me!

I Am Simply Not Interested, At This Point, In Creating Narrative Scenes Between Characters.

The Moment When A Limit Is Reached, When There Is Nothing Ahead But Darkness: Something Comes In To Help That Is Not Real. Another Way All This Is Like Madness: A Mad Person Not Helped Out Of His Trouble By Anything Real Begins To Trust What Is Not Real Because It Helps Him And He Needs It Because Real Things Continue Not To Help Him.

I Find Teaching - I Like It, But I Find Just Walking Into The Classroom And Facing The Students Very Difficult.

I Think The Close Work I Do As A Translator Pays Off In My Writing - I'm Always Searching For Multiple Ways To Say Things.

Often, The Idea That There Can Be A Wide Range Of Translations Of One Text Doesn't Occur To People - Or That A Translation Could Be Bad, Very Bad, And Unfaithful To The Original.

Part Of My Mind Is Working On How To End The Thing While I'm Going On. You Need At Least Two Brains To Write.

No One Is Calling Me. I Can’t Check The Answering Machine Because I Have Been Here All This Time. If I Go Out, Someone May Call While I’m Out. Then I Can Check The Answering Machine When I Come Back In.

I Don't Believe, In The End, That There Is Any Such Thing As No Style. Even A Very Neutral, Plain Style, One That Doesn't Use Colloquialisms, Lyrical Flourishes, Heavy Supplies Of Metaphor, Etc., Is A Style, And It Becomes A Writer's Characteristic Style Just As Much As A Thicker, Richer Deployment Of Idiom And Vocabulary.

I Worked More Intensively Hour After Hour When I Was Starting Out [writing]. More Laboriously. I'd Say Quantity Is Important As Well As Quality, And If You're Not Producing Enough, Make A Schedule And Stick To It.

That's The Interesting Thing About Writing. You Can Start Late, You Can Be Ignorant Of Things, And Yet, If You Work Hard And Pay Attention You Can Do A Good Job Of It.

I Think A Lot Of What Goes Into Writing Can Be Taught - Not Mixing Metaphors, Etc.

Do What You Want To Do, And Don't Worry If It's A Little Odd Or Doesn't Fit The Market.

I'm A Fierce Editor! I Don't Edit Out Things That I Began By Saying, Usually. The Editing Is On The Micro Level - A Comma Here, A Word There.

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