Purely Opinion

So if I were the type to pick favorites, and my choices were either George Orwell's "Why I Write" or the excerpts by Joan Didion, I would definitely go with the original Orwell piece. Not because I consider myself a slave to pure originality, but because the essay that he wrote, although much longer, was a much more enjoyable read. You definitely do not get to know Joan like you do George, who starts his montage at the beginning of his life really, and you have the priviledge of watching it unfold, whilest with Joan Didion's version, it all just sort of starts and ends in the same place. She also does not place the same amount of emphasis on writers and what it means to be a writer, whereas Orwell explicitly lists and explains traits of writers and why certain people are driven to write and where the passion for writing comes from. You learn what a writer is through Orwell. You learn their desires, psychology and basic personalities all throughout his essay.