Lydia Davis Quotes

When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

When I sit down to write, I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

I simply don't understand authors that know everything before they write it; it seems so cold blooded. I think it's lovely when the story takes over and goes somewhere else.

When I sat down and wrote the first paragraph, I was like, 'Oh, I can go with this.' I didn't do an outline. I didn't do anything. I just wrote sentence by sentence, not knowing where the story was going.

I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.

I just write what comes along. I don't have a detailed master plan.

I used to write chronologically when I started, from beginning to end. Eventually I went, 'That's absurd; my heart is in this one scene, therefore I must follow it.'

I've always thought of myself as an organic writer, rather than a cerebral one. I feel my way along as I go, hoping I'll get to the place I intend to reach.

I am very spontaneous when I write; it kind of just comes out. I never think about what I'm going to write about first... it just sort of comes out like word vomit.

When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads.

For me, you have to not have a formula. You have to not even sit down and say, 'I want to write right now.' It has to just kind of come out. It's not something you can plan.

I'm truly, 100% guided by the characters and my Muse. If one of the characters suddenly decided to do something very different, I'd just go with it. It's much easier to let the Muse drive than for me to try to steer.

Sometimes I think my writing sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.

I've just been writing stuff down as it comes to me. I haven't thought, 'Let me write some major opus here.'

The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.

I write sentence to sentence. That's the kind of writer I am. I don't have a plot when I begin. I have to be convinced and I have to be surprised.

Writing for 'Rooster' was a strange experience. It's funny, once you tap into a voice, words just start to flow. You know when you've hit a spirit or captured something.

I cannot outline. I do not know what the next thing is going to happen in the book until it comes out of my fingers.

When I'm writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I'm doing it, as I'm writing it.

I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit.

I try to begin writing as close to a dreamlike state as I can get.

My writing process isn't a very organized thing.

I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together.

The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books.