Re the dip pen:

"I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper. I use an old-fashioned dip pen like you used to see in post offices. It makes me take my time, and I feel comfortable doing it, whereas the clatter of a typewriter or to turn the drum backward to make a correction, all that's a kind of interruption I can't stand."

                                                                               --Shelby Foote

You can listen to a tape of him saying the above at:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/foo0int-4