Writing is important to me because it is a form of art as well as expression. Its very definition is “to create.” Joan Didion perfectly describes how I feel about writing and why I write in her essay, “Why I write.” She describes writing as a way of saying, “listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.” I write for three reasons mainly: to tell stories or poems inspired by images in my mind, therapy through keeping a journal, and to help myself organize my thoughts when planning to discuss something of importance.
Sometimes when I have a quiet moments to myself, I see things or recall things that I saw or read and write out a story. These moments happen when waiting for sleep or going on walks. For example, as I’m walking along I might see a little old lady sitting on her front porch and I’ll start to imagine what her life was like. I may also expirience something at work that struck me funny. When I was younger my reflections were born out of my interest in fairytales and superheroes. It just came. Joan Didions essay “Why I Write” reminded me of all that when she talked about the shimmer in the picture and said, “look hard enough, and you can’t miss the shimmer. It’s there. You can’t think too much about these pictures that shimmer. You just lie low and let them develop. You stay quiet. You don’t talk to too many people and you keep your nerbous system from shorting and you try and locate the cat in the shimmer, the grammar in the picture.”
I see the shimmer in my life’s picture through my journal. I write about my day as a form of therapy. I write about the good times and the bad times,so, I can look back on the past week, month, day, or year and realize how life is really not that bad and even though I’m struggling I’m better than I was.
Ms. Didion even describes writing as, “an agressive, even hostile act,” which is why I often write thing I want to discuss. I don’t do this, for the sake of writing angry letters to hurt people but, in order to better organize my thoughts to convey my feelings and opnions without sounding hostile.
These are my ways of saying,”listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.” It is my way of creating words from pictures and pictures from words. writing is my voice.
References
Didion, J. (1956, December 5). Why I write. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
Sometimes when I have a quiet moments to myself, I see things or recall things that I saw or read and write out a story. These moments happen when waiting for sleep or going on walks. For example, as I’m walking along I might see a little old lady sitting on her front porch and I’ll start to imagine what her life was like. I may also expirience something at work that struck me funny. When I was younger my reflections were born out of my interest in fairytales and superheroes. It just came. Joan Didions essay “Why I Write” reminded me of all that when she talked about the shimmer in the picture and said, “look hard enough, and you can’t miss the shimmer. It’s there. You can’t think too much about these pictures that shimmer. You just lie low and let them develop. You stay quiet. You don’t talk to too many people and you keep your nerbous system from shorting and you try and locate the cat in the shimmer, the grammar in the picture.”
I see the shimmer in my life’s picture through my journal. I write about my day as a form of therapy. I write about the good times and the bad times,so, I can look back on the past week, month, day, or year and realize how life is really not that bad and even though I’m struggling I’m better than I was.
Ms. Didion even describes writing as, “an agressive, even hostile act,” which is why I often write thing I want to discuss. I don’t do this, for the sake of writing angry letters to hurt people but, in order to better organize my thoughts to convey my feelings and opnions without sounding hostile.
These are my ways of saying,”listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.” It is my way of creating words from pictures and pictures from words. writing is my voice.
References
Didion, J. (1956, December 5). Why I write. Retrieved September 9, 2015.