Joan Didion received the National Book Foundation's life-time achievement award for writing in 2007 at the age of 73. In her acceptance speech (below), she mentions a bit about her writing process and about the book of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem, in which "On Keeping a Notebook" appears. But the real process she describes is the process of learning about what writing means. She's always liked writing, but she used to think of it as just a job. "In retrospect, we know how to write when we begin. What we learn from doing it is what writing was for."
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