traits each writer needs to master.“ You have to have the knowledge base— through self-education, MFA program, or whatever— to understand what quality is,” he says.“ You have to be able to determine in a clear-eyed way if what you’ re writing is quality or not. You have to be willing to do the work, for as many revisions as it takes, to get the writing up to the quality it needs to be.” An MFA program, Heathcock says, is essentially training writers to see quality and to understand how to write great sentences, images, and dialogue.
Aspiring writers who can’ t enroll in an MFA program can still master these traits by“ exercising their library card,” Heathcock says.“ Don’ t just read books in a casual way. Read to understand what quality is. Pay attention to your reaction as a reader. If a piece of writing excites you, ask yourself why. Is it scary or lovely or thought-provoking? Work to understand how that writer made you feel or think or imagine in a certain way.”
Heathcock is a studied reader. He reads with a highlighter pen, marking passages and dialogue that catch his attention. Later, he writes those passages in a notebook that he revisits.“ It helps me hone in on who I am as a writer. I cultivate my own aesthetic,” he says.“ Anyone can do that.”
A Daily Ritual of Discipline Writing every day is an essential discipline for Heathcock, but beyond that he admits,“ You’ ve got to do whatever the heck works on any given day to get through it. I’ m all over the place— sometimes I’ m in a groove, and other times it all stops working.”
Heathcock gets his kids to school each morning and writes from 8:15 to 3:00— but writing doesn’ t always mean putting words on paper.“ Most of the time I’ m figuring out what I’ m going to type when I get to the computer, so I’ m thinking a great deal,” he says.“ I’ m writing a novel, and I know tomorrow I’ m writing a scene where there’ s been a bombing and this woman is trapped in a cave. I’ m thinking my way through the logistics of what the cave looks and smells like, what steps the woman might take considering her character, what the ramifications of this one moment are to the story. My imagination is completely with this character, and then I go to the computer and find the best words to capture the truth of that empathetic condition.”
Heathcock has been fortunate this past year to teach writing overseas, but he admits that travel disturbs a writer’ s routine. However, the cultural experiences make up the loss by feeding his understanding of the world.“ You challenge yourself as a human being to have new experiences,” he says.“ The travel has pushed me out of my very controlled comfort zone. Seeing new places and expanding my intellect and imagination— living my life and feeling alive— is incredibly important to me.”
Volt: Stories by Alan Heathcock is available online and locally at Rediscovered Books. For more information or to contact the author, visit his website: alanhealthcock. com
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