Why I Write

I think it's cool that Didion pieces together her novels rather than writing them completely from beginning to end. Instead, she fills in gaps. It doesn't matter how you write something as long as you have a finished product when all is said and done. She writes whatever comes to her first. She writes fiction, and not everyone has the brain for writing fiction. She's very keen to her surroundings, or at least her characters are, and I think that she captures those descriptive moments well. It's interesting that she makes up a scene, and then she creates the characters bios. Also it's a bit humorous that she's basically saying that the only thing she's good at is writing. That's why she writes. I think she has this impulse to write and to keep "pictures in her mind" and to turn those pictures into words and scenes.

I have to admit that if you don't follow along closely in the the Didion piece you can get lost easily. Or should I say, I, Allison, can. I found myself rereading Why I Write because, at first, I just skimmed it. One minute she's talking about things shimmering, and the next, she's talking about cannibalized Fairchild F-227s. Maybe she's too descriptive. Sometimes I just want her to get to the point. I don't always need to know that her character's sandals are sticking to the asphalt(we get it, it's hot outside), I just want to know what her thoughts and intentions are as she's walking on that asphalt.