Metacognition: Kite Runner Essay

I didn't know what to fill up that space with.  It's amazing, at any point when you're about to do something, one has the potential to either be the best in the world at it, or the worst in the world, or anything in between.  Why is it that Sean's blog appears to be written by a college student who has had a couple too many to drink, and Bill's seems so much closer to the ideal?  Why is it that when I write, it seems to come off as average, but when a great author writes, they come up with something great?

Do great authors know what to fill up that space with?  I don't know.  What is it that goes through their minds when they sit down?  Does Brian Jacques think "449 pages to go" after he has finished writing the first page of his next book?  What does Isaac Asimov do when he comes up with an idea?  I don't know.

I know I started by retyping the pieces of evidence I had.  That helped.  Then, I knew I had to introduce them, so I wrote out an introduction for each piece of evidence.  Hey, that doesn't look half bad.  So I kept going.  I wrote out analysis for each quote.  Now, we're getting somewhere.  What is this missing?  Oh yeah, a thesis.  So I wrote that out.  Then, I just kept filling in the holes.  

I remember thinking, "Why do I have such a tendency to use words like 'appropriate' or 'adequate' when describing things?"  I think it's because I'm a debater.  In debate, those words tend to be very good because they help one team vaguely describe what it is exactly that they do.  If one team says that the United States federal government should "adequately" increase funding for medicare, it is harder to beat them because no matter what it is decided that "adequate funding" is, they do it.  Thus, arbitrary phrases such as that might work well in the debate world, but not necessarily that well when what you think has to be defined more clearly.

Blogging Around

Alex made a post about American presence in Afghanistan and how it related to the Russian presence in Kite Runner.

I too am glad you brought up afghanistan. I think it is all we can do to hope that our hegemony does not affect others in the same way that the Russians' did in Kite Runner. This issue become ever more pressing with the new reports and the question of whether or not to increase our military presence in this area. Good post, and good job.

Connor posted about the struggle between an author and his characters.  

I agree with you Connor. I had not really thought about creating a story out of a disagreement between a character and the author. It adds a whole new layer of depth to the story when the author can force-feed his characters what they need.

I too started thinking of other books that this occurred in. It is odd how in most books I like, the main character or characters are forced out of the "normal" status quo. For most of the story, they long to get back to where they started; although in most stories it's about a literal return, not an emotional.