Response to Joan Didion's Why I Write

It made a lot of sense for Didion to say she writes because if she's interested in something she isn't important enough for people to listen to her talk about it. I think that could be a very god reason to write. If you enjoy something, then you know a lot about it, and therefore writing about it would be easy. I also like her approach to writing as a way to make people agree with you, it is your chance to say something you strongly believe and make your reader pay attention. It made writing seem much more powerful from the writer's standpoint. From a reader's standpoint it made me realie the effect something i read can have on my own opinions. Are the things i believe in coming from things i've read? Probably not all my beliefs, but some of them probably are, and i probably tend to read things that agree with my beliefs more than go against it.

It was interesting how Didion discovered she was a writer, she said there was a good chance she would have never found out if it wasn't for the summer she spent teaching a class. I think that is an important thing for everyone to have. A lot of people don't know what they want to do with their life and she randomly had an epiphany of what she was to do, and it ended up being something she enjoys. Meanwhile she probably had these "pictures" influencing her all along but it just took her awhile to realize what to do with them.