Here's the thing...I love writing dialogue.
Here's the other thing...I have an equal love for eavesdropping on anything remotely resembling good dialogue.
It's a bad, bad habit. When teenage couples come into Starbucks, sit one table away and start talking about how they're using the rythym method, I shouldn't listen! I really shouldn't and yet I do.
There are conversations I tune out with ease. Neverending discussions of physical ailments are like the sound of a vaccuum cleaner when I'm writing. Pleasant white noise. Easily filterable.
Same goes for the quasi business meetings. However, I'm a sucker for job interviews. Do you know how many people interview potential employees at coffee shops? I do!! There are days when it's all I can do not to intercede. NOOOO. Don't give the 'I'm good with people answer'!
But I don't. I restrain myself. Or at least I did until last week.
We live in inner city Portland which means it's very walkable. As a result, every so often people walk through the neighborhood at odd hours of the night. Like 3:00 AM, for example.
The other night I was roused from a dead sleep by loud voices floating up to my second floor window which was thrown open wide to let in the night air. I'm not entirely sure why this group of boys/men, or as I started thinking of them, boys to men, decided to pause on the sidewalk below my bedroom window, but they did.
The dialogue that follows is a direct transcript of their conversation except the words 'stuff' and 'get with' are variations on the raunchier four letter words that were actually used.
"Dude, you gotta disappear for a while and be all, like mysterious and stuff. That's how you handle Xena."
"Yeah, just don't talk to her for a while and then she'll be so ready to get with you. She'll want it bad, bro."
(general laughter at this witticism)
"So you walk in and Xena's all like let's go and then you get with her and then you, like, don't talk to her for a week and then she's totally ready to get with you, like right after you text her."
"Dude, Xena's so hot! You gotta lock that stuff down."
What had been building as slow amusement turned into a sudden snort of laughter. Honestly, I just couldn't help myself. My disembodied giggling from on high put the boys to men on red alert.
Despite the foolproof plan they were crafting to 'get with' Xena, their brand of machismo apparently didn't extend to bravery in the face of female laughter. They took off at a dead run.
My advice to Xena...all you have to do is laugh.
My advice to me....control the giggles because that was some great 3:00 AM boys to men dialogue that I scared away.
And that, my friends, is one more reason I know I'm a writer. While some people might seethe about interrupted sleep, I seethe about dialogus interruptus.