Joan Didion-Why I Write

I thought Joan Didion's excerpt was very interesting. I'm not sure I agreed with her opening statements where she says that writing is always used to persuade, but the more I think about it, the writer is trying to express their opinion in a logical manner, so that the reader can ultimately understand what they're trying to convey, so I guess that is fairly true. I guess I interpreted the main point of the article as the fact that you can try to study various writing methods and attempt to think about writing so abstractly, but unless what you're writing about isn't truly personal to you, it won't be effective. I can definitely agree that writing has to be personal and have meaning. I like how she describes the way some of her mental photographs "shimmered" and that that is ultimately what inspires her writing. I think everyone can relate to seeing something that probably has no real emotional meaning to anyone else, but for some reason the image strikes them or has some effect on that specific person. It is a very interesting insight into her writing process, and something that I'd like to try to use with my own writing.