A few years ago while I was overseas, I read the first two volumes of Shelby Foote’s massive narrative of the Civil War. Just today I picked up Volume 3. I know I’m not alone in becoming a fan of his after his appearance in Ken Burns’ documentary – which I just started watching again on DVD. I poked around the internet and stumbled upon a transcript of an interview from the show Booknotes. Foote’s history of the Civil War took 20 years to write; about 3000 pages and 1.5 million words. And he wrote it 500 words at a time, in longhand, with a dip pen.

FOOTE: Five hundred or 6OO words is a good day for me. I write with a dip pen, which causes all kind of problems – everything from finding blotters to pen points – but it makes me take my time, and it gives me a real feeling of satisfaction. I’m getting where I’m going.

…But a dip pen, you have to dip it in the ink and write three or four words and dip it again. It has a real influence on the way I write, so different not only from a typewriter but from using a pencil or a fountain pen.

LAMB: What do you do with it after it’s written the 500 words every day?

FOOTE: I set it aside to dry; then copy it off on a typewriter, make a typewritten copy of it and then recopy on that until finally the day is over and I’m all the way satisfied with it and I put it on the stack – make a clean copy and put it on the stack. That way I don’t have to engage in something that to me is a particular form of heartbreak, which is revision. I don’t do that.

Holy smokes. This reminds me of the opposite end of the spectrum: Truman Capote’s quote about Jack Kerouac writing On The Road on a single 120-foot scroll of tracing paper: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

Update (1 Jan 11): Revisiting this post and I noticed the transcript link was bed. Now fixed.

I’m off to Owego, NY early in the AM for work. Need to coordinate all crappy weather to be somewhere other than O’Hare and Syracuse. I’ll be back on Friday. Here are some utterly random thoughts:

I’m kind of beaked that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is going to be Intel-only

Message to all iPhone game developers that implement the stupid option to send my score to Facebook and/or Twitter: Stop it…that’s lame.

I’m a Dodgers fan, but I really detest the Yankees…Go Philly!

I’ll be the first to scoff the MSM for being in the tank for the Obama White House, so let me also say kudos for taking a stand against the administration’s silly cat fight against Fox News.

Who is the marketing genius that came up with the final tag line for those (completely annoying) Most Interesting Man Dos Equis commercials? “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” Could he have qualified his support even more? Is the Most Interesting Man supposed to be Bill Clinton?

My carbon footprint is probably one tenth that of Al Gore’s. Therefore, I feel I am exempt from his nannying lectures.

Having lived in Las Vegas for the last 3+ years, trust me when I say that the Senator Harry Reid that the nation sees and the Senator Reid that is presented to the Nevada public in the form of campaign ads are two different people.

Did you ever notice that nametags worn by the Delta Force commandos masquerading as TSA employees are their first names? Police officers, military members, other professional fields: last names. That guy that sold you a Big Mac yesterday…first name. How fitting.

It’s tougher when you’re stupid. And it’s really tough when you whine about it like a little girl. St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Adam Wainwright talking about Matt Holiday’s error in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs and one run lead that allowed the Dodgers to score two runs, win the game and go up 2-0 in the NLDS.

That ball got lost in 50,000 white towels shaking in front of Matt’s face,” Wainwright said. “It doesn’t really seem fair that an opposing team should be able to allow their fans to shake white towels when there’s a white baseball flying through the air. How about Dodger Blue towels?”

You’re complaining about the fans? Who are waving little towels? It’s not fair? How about a nice cup of suck it? Wainwright – you pitched a nice game, it was a tough loss, but sack up and quit being a crybaby.

P.S. Go Dodgers!

And the word for September is 9.8%. Isn’t Biden in charge of this?

Thanks to Don Surber