The first thing that caught my attention when I picked up Into the Weeds by Lydia Davis was her admission that she doesn’t really know why she writes. In fact, she’s uncomfortable with the question.
I found that rather reassuring.
We can spend so much time thinking about why we write, what we’re trying to achieve and what our creative work is supposed to mean. Yet here is an accomplished writer who isn’t particularly interested in pinning down a definitive answer. Perhaps she would rather not know.
I was given this book by a dear client and friend, with whom I’ve bonded over our shared love of Lydia Davis’s short fiction. She introduced me to Davis’s work, and I’ve adored it ever since. I love her astute noticing of the world around her and the way she captures ordinary moments, often finding something quite extraordinary in what might otherwise pass us by.
For those Australian readers who haven’t yet come across her, Davis is an American writer, essayist and translator, widely admired for her short fiction. Her stories can be wonderfully brief, sometimes just a few sentences, yet they have a way of staying with you. She has a particular ability to notice something small and make us look at it differently.
Into the Weeds is a little different from her fiction. Published as part of Yale University Press’s Why I Write series, it is a reflection on the creative process, drawing on Davis’s own writing and reading, as well as the work of other writers she admires.
And while she doesn’t set out to give us a definitive answer to why she writes, she gives us plenty to think about.
Why do we write?
I particularly enjoyed Davis’s reluctance to answer the question she has been asked. Rather than immediately producing a polished explanation of her motivations, she explores how she writes and what she finds herself drawn to.
She considers the possibility that she writes because something bothers her. Not necessarily in a negative sense, but because something catches her attention and stays with her until she does something with it.
I love this idea.
As writers, we often talk about finding an idea or coming up with a story. We might sit down and try to think of something worth writing about, or look for a subject that feels important enough to justify the time we’re going to spend on it.
But what if we started by paying attention to the things that already interest us?
A conversation that keeps coming back to us. Something peculiar we’ve noticed on a walk. A small detail in someone’s behaviour. A question we can’t quite answer. An experience that we keep turning over in our minds.
Perhaps these are the beginnings of something. We don’t necessarily need to know what that something is.
I also find it reassuring that Davis doesn’t present writing as something that needs to have one grand purpose. There are many reasons to write, and they may be different for each of us. Sometimes we write to understand something, sometimes to communicate an experience, and sometimes simply for the pleasure of working with language.
We don’t have to have it all worked out.
The art of noticing
This is where Davis’s approach particularly resonates with me.
One of the things I adore about her short fiction is her attention to the ordinary. She notices things that many of us might overlook, and she has a way of capturing them without making them feel overly significant or dressing them up.
There’s a precision to her observations. She seems to look at the world with a particular kind of curiosity, noticing the details, the oddities and the small moments that make up our everyday lives.
In Into the Weeds, she explores this attentiveness through her own writing and the work of other authors. She considers how writers observe, select and shape the material around them.
It made me think about how much of our creative work begins with simply being present.
We can be so busy getting through the day, moving from one task to another, that we don’t always give ourselves the opportunity to notice what’s happening around us. We might walk the same route every morning without really looking at it, or have a conversation without noticing the little things that make it distinctive.
What might happen if we slowed down a little?
For writers, this kind of noticing is invaluable. It’s how we build a store of details, gestures, sounds, expressions and observations that can find their way into our stories. For artists and other creatives, it’s about developing an eye for the things that might otherwise go unnoticed.
And it doesn’t need to be a deliberate exercise. It can simply be part of how we move through the world.
Following our curiosity
Another thing I enjoyed about this book was Davis’s willingness to follow her reading interests wherever they take her.
She brings in a wonderfully eclectic collection of writers and thinkers, including James Baldwin, Grace Paley, Knut Hamsun, John Ashbery and John Clare. She also spends time considering George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop, a detailed account of traditional craft and the knowledge involved in making things.
I found this particularly appealing because it reinforces the value of reading beyond our usual interests.
As writers and creatives, we can sometimes become quite focused on what we think we should be reading. We read within our genre, look for books about writing or seek out material that will directly help with the project we’re working on.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, of course. But there’s also something to be said for following our curiosity without needing to justify it.
A book about an unfamiliar craft might offer us a new way of thinking about the process of making. An essay about history might send us off on a research tangent. A short story might make us reconsider how we use language or structure a piece of work.
We don’t always know what we’re looking for when we read, and we don’t need to.
Sometimes the connections only become apparent later.
Enjoying the process
Davis also explores the pleasure of writing itself. The pleasure of encountering something that needs to be expressed, working with language and shaping it until it becomes something that feels right.
This is an important reminder for anyone who finds their creative practice becoming a little too focused on outcomes.
We want to finish the manuscript, publish the book, submit the story, complete the painting or get the work out into the world. We set goals and deadlines, and we measure our progress against them.
These things can be useful. I certainly believe in having a plan and making time for our creative work. But we can also lose sight of the pleasure of actually doing it.
What if we allowed ourselves to enjoy the experimentation, the unexpected discoveries and the moments when something comes together?
What if we gave ourselves permission to follow an idea without knowing whether it would become anything?
I think there’s a connection here with the importance of play in our creative lives. Not everything needs to be productive or have a clear outcome. Sometimes the value is in the experience itself.
What I’m taking into my own creative practice
Reading Into the Weeds has reminded me of the importance of staying curious and noticing what’s happening around me.
It’s also reminded me that we don’t need to have a perfectly articulated reason for doing our creative work. We might know that we love writing, painting, making or exploring ideas without being able to explain exactly why.
And that’s enough.
I particularly like the idea of being bothered by something in the positive sense Davis describes. Of allowing an observation or an idea to stay with us, rather than immediately deciding whether it’s worth pursuing.
As a writer and creativity coach, I spend a lot of time encouraging people to make space for their creative work. Sometimes that means finding the time, building a routine or working through the self-doubt that gets in the way. But it also means making space for curiosity, for wandering and for the things that don’t have an obvious purpose.
We don’t have to turn every moment into material. We don’t have to make every interest productive. But we can become more attentive to the world and allow ourselves to be interested in it.
And perhaps that’s one of the most useful things a creative practice can give us: a reason to keep looking, wondering and noticing.
Into the Weeds isn’t a book of writing exercises or a step-by-step guide to becoming a better writer. It’s a thoughtful exploration of the many ways we come to write, and a reminder that the reasons can be as varied as the writers themselves.
I’d recommend it to writers and creatives who enjoy thinking about their practice, reading about other writers and following ideas beyond the obvious. It’s also a lovely book to have beside you as you work, particularly if you enjoy stopping to think about a passage and making a few notes.
And if you’ve not yet read Lydia Davis’s short fiction, I’d encourage you to explore that too. Her ability to notice and capture the ordinary is something quite special.
A little something to try
What have you noticed lately that has stayed with you? A conversation, an unexpected detail, something you’ve seen on a walk or a thought that keeps returning?
Take a few minutes to write it down. Don’t worry about whether it’s a story idea or something you can use in your creative work. Just follow your curiosity and see where it takes you.
And if you’ve read Lydia Davis, I’d love to know which of her books you’ve enjoyed.
If you’re looking for more ways to make space for your creative practice, you might enjoy exploring my writing and creativity resources. And if you’re curious about how I support writers and creatives, Start Here is a good place to begin.