"A writer should write not about what he knows, but about what he doesn't know about what he knows."

The passage by William Kennedy is where the title to this post has come from, the part in the story that stood out to me most. I found it confusing at first, but when I finally, fully understood it, I found it quite interesting. "Mystery is the basic element of all works of art." When you think about it, it is true. Mystery is what makes stories and all other forms of art interesting and engrossing.

Pat Conroy had me wishing there was more to his passage. His story was upsetting, however it was something that would keep my interest even after 500 pages. It's sad that things like that happen in the real world. I'd like so much to believe that men only beat their wives in those dramatic Lifetime movies; not in a real house, with a real man, and a real woman, and their very real children. My favorite parts of this passage was when the sister said to him, "We didn't write it down. If it's going to be real, you got to write it down." and the very end when he said, "My father made one mistake. He was raising an American novelist and an American poet - and we wrote it down." I think these phrases show us the power of writing, what kind of stories it can tell, and what kind of this we can utilize it for.

I found myself laughing aloud to the passage by Maurice Sendak when described the story that he and his brother wrote as children. The beginning of the passage was a bit dull for my taste, however the end was quite enjoyable. It's odd to me how people can be so natural with their writing; how they, even as children, loved it and wanted to do it; how reading books was always a favorite activity for them. And while I do realize that I am not fit to be a write for a living, I wonder if it is because I wasn't one of those children who basked in the joy of getting a new book. My love for books didn't develop until middle school, which is a bit late according to this story.

I have a habit of picking my favorite lines, but I think it gives me something to focus on from the passage rather than aimlessly try to write about my reaction to each piece of writing. "Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see," was my favorite line from this passage by Annie Dillard. It is a true statement and one that I've heard from art teachers before. It is hard, though; I cant seem to see correctly at all. I applaud Annie Dillard for finding the ability to see and put it onto a paper, that takes time and skill, and I'm incredibly jealous. I wonder, is drawing her main activity, or is it writing? Then again, I guess they could go hand in hand. If you have the ability to see things so clearly and be able to transfer it beautifully onto a canvas, you may as well be able to think of something to say and transfer it beautifully into words on a paper.

"The words of the world are the life of the world." A wonderful phrase to end with. I find it amusing how much the different ways words could be used excited this little boy. I gave a slight giggle when he wrote, "And then my father and mother went to the theater and sat in a box. A box? Why on earth would grown-ups sit in a box, which was something that I kept my toys in?" I guess to a child, going to theater and sitting in a box would be quite the odd thing to do. And it is fascinating, if you think about it, how many different things a word can mean. We don't tend to find ourselves thinking about these things since we so simply understand them, but hearing them from a child's ears, how exciting it is indeed.