Some of the best dialogue…ever

This is an excerpt from one of my all-time favorite books, No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Every time I read it I get a little chill. A master of prose, is Mr. McCarthy! If you haven’t read this book yet, do yourself a favor.

You all gettin any rain up your way? the proprietor said.

Which way would that be?

I seen you was from Dallas.

Chigurh picked his change up off the counter. And what business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?

I didnt mean nothin by it.

You didnt mean nothing by it.

I was just passin the time of day.

I guess that passes for manners in your cracker view of things.

Well sir, I apologized. If you dont want to accept my apology I dont know what else I can do for you.

How much are these?

Sir?

I said how much are these.

Sixty-nine cents.

Chigurh unfolded a dollar onto the counter. The man rang it up and stacked the change before him the way a dealer places chips. Chigurh hadnt taken his eyes from him. The man looked away. He coughed. Chigurh opened the plastic package of cashews with his teeth and doled a third part of them into his palm and stood eating.

Will there be somethin else? the man said.

I dont know. Will there?

Is there somethin wrong?

With what?

With anything.

Is that what you’re asking me? Is there something wrong with anything.

Day 1 of NaNoWriMo

Day 1 is down! Word count so far: 1773. As is typical when I write, at first I wasn’t liking what I was putting down but I kept writing anyway, and next thing I knew I was liking some of what I wrote, and then more, and I hit my minimum number of words for today with still more story bursting at the seams. So I left the book in a place where it’ll be easy and fun to jump right in, whether it’s later today or tomorrow. (Probably later today.)

I toyed around with Scrivener for the first time today. A test drive. At first I thought it sounded very cool, but as I started writing in it I was distracted by the fact that I can’t use it across all my devices unless I export it out as a Word doc every time, so I went back to plain old Word and saving it in my SkyDrive. I sometimes think that we are all too easily wowed by shiny new things rather than just writing and not caring what pretty package we’re doing it within. But am I wrong? Any of you writers who use Scrivener who would never go back to Word alone?

Busy month…

On top of participating in National Novel Writing Month (50,000 words in 30 days–November 1-30), I’ll now also be doing a weekly beginning agility class with my girl, Sura! It starts next week. I have the feeling I’ll be pretty tired this month but hey, that’s what coffee is for!

Pictures/video to come in the coming weeks…