Summary

“Why I Write” examines Didion’s motivations for entering the writing profession. She describes the very act of writing as selfish and form of bullying, with the reader’s mind being penetrated by an author’s own thoughts, expression, and perspectives. Didion says that as a student at Berkeley she realized she was not able to think like an intellectual – namely, in the abstract – but rather would become focused on material things and sensations, remembering moments as she experienced them and dwelling on them for long after. She explains how the image of an airport in Panama had so imprinted itself on her brain on one of her trips that it inspired “Play It As It Lays,” one of her novels. She notes that her ideas for novels do not come take the form of entire plots, fully formed...