Writing is an Art - Essay Example

Most people think it is the most natural and easiest thing to put pen to paper and create a good piece of writing if not masterpieces, but this is easier said than done. Writing is an art that only the chosen few are endowed with. One need not have to be a good writer in order to be a good speaker, but when it comes to writing, one has to be a fairly articulate speaker, if one aspires to be a good writer. The reason for this is, if you are able to express yourself through speech, one could easily express themselves through writing.

Joan Didion made claims in the New York Times Magazine (Dec. 5th, 1976) that she has stolen the title of “Why I write” from the great author George Orwell because she liked the sound of the “three short ambiguous words.” Didion states that the act of writing is nothing but the imposing of the author’s views and ideas on a particular audience. She calls writing “an aggressive and even a hostile act” because though the author tries his best to veil or camouflage the writing, yet one cannot get away from the salient fact that the author is a “secret bully” by imposing his “sensibility on the reader’s most private space.

” Didion goes on to enumerate her experiences at Berkeley where she did her majors in English and speaks of her inability to deal with different ideas. She always dwelt on the periphery and the physical act of things around her, such as those that had to do with the sense of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and touching. In other words, she travelled in the world of writing on a ‘shaky passport” because she was no “legitimate resident in the world of ideas.” It had taken her a great length of time to realize that she was passionate about her writing and wanted to be a writer.