Hello, I've definitely made and I'm the publisher of this thing fly magazine and you're listening to the stinging fly podcast in every episode. We ask a writer to read a story from our archives and afterwards we discussed the story The Art of writing and their own work today. I'm joined by rushing pagan origins. First novel now Burr was published earlier this year by John Murray number is set in Ireland during the plague and it's a funny Dark smart and beautifully written take on hisConviction assume is also the author of hostages a short story collection published by new island and a novella. The horror fans rushing has chosen today to read. Hey a short story by David Haden which we published in our spring 2010 issue and which appeared in David's debut collection darker with lights on hope you enjoy the story and the Josh. Here's a lashing with hey,And he straightens his hat and listens to the carriage song Long metallic. He's and F Sharps Grumble rumbles and a shuck shuck shuck a pause and a shuck shuck shuck acrylate holds the interior still and suggests the great Brown World outside and he shifts tackling on the base eating. Everything exchanges the super-rich heat. Everything is imperfectly addressed the train Scott her is over a long bridge that might have been an aqueduct in a country with water and he looks right words out of the blue concrete towers that many people live in The window scene concrete to but they cannot be the train Rises to the height of pyramid roofs corrugated iron with Fernandez where people store boxes. On one of the Verandas and he sees a man a very young man with the beard. He is leaning backwards in a harness and the harness is roped upwards and as the man lifts his feet off the floor. He starts to rise. And he realizes that man is being lifted into the air by a bale of hay an ordinary cuboid bale of hay the man is rising slowly looking down keeping his rope clear in his harness steady always looking down but not noticing that the Rope is stroking the rough edge of the iron Eaves and that he will surely collide with the roof if he does not kick against the wall or the post. And he looks away and left words to the packs of houses that lie under a different sky dark blue Rippling from the windows people watch the passing train, but they are small and and I cannot see their faces. No one talks in the carriage and he looks at his own hands. Looking right words again. The plane is clear except for a dotting of stunted farmhouses and the white Sky searching arms of the gum trees far ahead is an enormous Tower block know it is a mountain high stack of hay bales shifting from side to side slightly slowly the tower looms it's us rates and he feels threatened. He goes to sleep. And he wakes up in the high Tower is exactly where it was shouldering its mass in one place as if it is followed him the train slows and slows and the song ends and he squeezes out at the narrow Carriage door with his carpetbag and step soundlessly onto the platform. The train is gone. The sun is flattened white. The color alone could make the world harsh even without its fire and he walks to the Main Street walks past the tiled walls at the hotel and stops outside the cafe and hand painted sign at side reads chew and spew. He steps inside the cafe smells good. Long black, please. I'll bring her over. And he sits down on a detonated self in the shade a blue apron shifts by a man dips shows a shiny head and wispy hair and places the coffee on a low table food maybe later. The man nods smiles to himself and walks back behind the counter. He starts to polish a glass with his robber aren't you hot in that suit, I suppose I am did you need that waistcoat it goes with the suit. How's the coffee? Fine your mind the questions? Yes, why no reason food maybe later and he drinks two thirds of the coffee heart Waits and drinks the last Cold he crosses the street in the shadow of the hate. Our the office is opposite behind a steel door. It is air-conditioned cool cold the receptionist's it's still behind her counter. Not even pretending to type. She looks at Andy. Good afternoon. Says Andy. I'm here to seek ragic crazy Jack. He's expecting you. What's your name? Andy Andy, he's expecting you take the stairs. Why is the lift broken and he runs up the stairs and opens the door at the top. He looks out. There is a simple fall to the street and he runs down the steps finds another door and opens it to find a mostly empty room with a man sitting on a large green leather chair with a stool at his feet in the corner as a tough-looking. Brush. Mr. Cracker, Jack crash. I guess you must be Andy. Yes. I must be sit and he steps forward encroaches on the stool. The mind is flooded flooded. Where did that come from the usual place? But is so dry in these parts not in the minors isn't so the job is to make it dry again. Jovani hydraulic equipment schinsky pumps outflow piping with secure attachments diggers fallen off Reservoir. No, nothing like that. None of this is necessary. You just have to make them stop. And he looks at cryogenic silently thinking make who stopped wash make the minor stop crying but I'm an engineer. I don't how you stop them is not my concern stop. The flooding is all and he replies silently in conclusively. I'll pay you to try I've never done this kind of work before try. Where's the mine? I'll drive you. It's not far. A snow like Rush of dust and dry grass sweeps around the bubble curves of the car scraps of hay and empty golden rappers littered the floor a sweet smell of coconut sense the air crash ugh brakes suddenly and opens the door and he hears a faint Tremor of moaning and steps out of the car. Krycek is already most of the way to a large Shack tiny pieces of hay shoot and swirl around forcing Andy to Shayla size purses lips and breathe through his nose he begins to run. because he passes through the shack screamed or cried shakes himself down and takes off a pair of protective glasses and a mouth mask that Andy had not noticed and he wipes his eyes and looks around the rise rise and fall of Man sobbing finds a shape each showed her mounting on the others one man stands in the middle of the room water planing down his cheeks on too is twisting outstretched hands his fingers shine clean in the Bare Bulb light of the shack and other weeper stands in a corner leaning dutifully over a large tub that holds a flourishing bamboo plant dozens of men sit on benches at long tables eating identical meat pies with tomato sauce on top pocket scattered at their feet more sitted barstools, gripping shoobs of beer the floor beneath them slippery with tears and solitary tearless woman moves up and down the room with the mop and bucket. It's bad. No it gets worse. How did it start? Just did have you called the doctor. He just said it was idiopathic and started crying. Then he billed me for his laundry are all the women not crying. Yes. Why don't you hire more women? We don't do that. How come you're not crying? I can't cry. I have to use teardrops. Krycek takes a golden envelope out of his pocket slips out the rough Brown candy disc and Pops it whole into his mouth. It looks uncomfortably large and he waits for him to swallow. Cry Jack swallows. How long does it take for new miners to start crying varies? Usually about two weeks. How long does it take for them to stop when they're after job varies and usually about four weeks. Why don't you run a shift system two weeks on and four weeks off. That a triple my wage bill at least projects trucks the back of his head grimaces and locks up. I can afford it. I'm already paying time-and-a-half tear money. Why don't you do it? Because you've only just thought of it what you want me to do. Well, I can handle the Recruitment and the scheduling I'd like you to survey the Mind see if there's any damage and get it back to work. I'll do that. And he walks through the hey stormed the minehead climbs into the cage and descends the heart Superior shoulders with sobs and low blowing the cage Falls rapidly and rapidly slows before stopping and he rattles the gate open presses the signal buzzer twice and steps out a man with a Long White Beard appears out of the Gloom carrying a lamp and leads Andy down a narrow passage the wall Sparkle the sound of men crying comes from every direction growing louder as they have run along with their next crime. To avoid scraping their heads on the roof. Nearly an hour's walk later and he sees an orange light up ahead. They are soon standing at the entrance of a great chamber at Thousand men are sitting or standing alone or in groups all weeping in their own ways. Their silvery issue sluicing across the floor a great self syncopating Orchestra of misery, and he quickly works out that standard pumping equipment will deal with the flooding is any work getting done not much. Workings flooded. Yeah, why haven't you got pumping the man wipes his beard and shrugs his shoulders. How can you stand the noise after a while? It's like it was always here and why don't the man quit pay is good. Within two weeks Sunday has a pumping rig fully operation a month later. The new shifts are working. There are so many men on the recovery shift that a large Camp is built on the edge of town at night the men go out into the desert to cry and drink beer dazzling flowers begin to rise up through the abandoned in ease and soon. The bloom is spreading outwards from miles around Farmers move in and saw the desert with Maize and wheat fields are planted with spinach zucchini Pak Choy and peppers. The Growers reach an agreement with the mind to allow its workers to become shift weepers after spending periods of time Underground during the night. They water The Orchards of oranges lemons and mangoes with their tears eventually the men desiccate and have to return to the city to rehydrate but there are always enough people to take their place. And he returned some years later and stays at the new resort hotel. He stands on the balcony and looks out at the gentle shifting Tower of hey the sound of discrete crying arrives with the odor of ripening fruit and silhouetted against the high yellow moon is a solitary man held Aloft by a bale of hay Thank you again for reading the story and can you tell us a little bit about well not perhaps why you chose it? And also what you like about the story I chose it because it's Unique. I I don't think I've ever read anything like it definitely not coming from an Irish author and maybe in a more Global context. It would remind me a little bit of maybe some kind of French nouvelle romance stuff or It's a modernist fairytale. The image re is very striking very worked on and the symbols are very strong. But the kind of don't configure together and parts of it remind me of maybe a Bob Dylan song from the 60s or Charlie Chaplin film. It's very very funny and you can think about it for a long time. Yeah, so I was reading an interview with David where he was talking about his process for writing stories. Or he's would be to you know, take a lot of the identifiers. I wish you know in terms of place names or just regular like anything that would smack of maybe you know, that would be overly familiar to the reader. So he's kind of taking those things out in order to build this other type of world. Where can you see that working this story? Yeah. Definitely the stories are very They're Stark in the sense that they're kind of series of conversations and images and you can imagine someone working out this world fully and then cutting and cutting and cutting until it becomes this kind of dream scape. And and I think that's why they kind of resist interpretation so much and they have a kind of sticking power. I mean I could try if you interpretations with them in different ways, but you definitely get this feeling that There are series of strong images being pulled together. Now that might be the result of him writing a 50-page kind of outline and then taking these pieces or it might be that these are just these haunting images that deserve to be in a story and would you describe the writing here as experimental or how do you feel about that tiger? But in writing anyway, it's excellent writing. I think that's the kind of that. That's the only brand or writing. And I would say the way the stories are put together the way the scenes are struck together and the activities of the story our new yeah or Stark. So yep sure why not experimental, but those is that the type of writing or the thinking behind writing that appeals to you or I like things that aren't boring and this story is not boring at all as you need a certain level of concentration and you kind of have to interrupt the flow. It's kind of syncopated thing. So what appeals to me is things that are are exciting and different and this story has that in Spades. I mean you go through kind of a whole Economic Development you go through the creation of the city and then it's strong together by this image of hey, it's remarkable. Yep, and then I suppose there is a sense of this kind of building of a world within the writing so that you know, this word has been presented to us, but it's a world that we have to that the writer has created and that we are being introduced to and we can have to find our way in at very quickly and because it's not quite our world is obviously close to it. So is that something you know in terms of your own work that you I'm trying to get up the I suppose the relationship between you as a reader and you as a writer and how one feeds into the other. II like excellent rising and the World building stuff, right what David Haden does and I appreciate it very much and I tried to do this as well is he does defamiliarization? So he takes a series of tropes that would be recognizable. But he makes them Crazy by what he leaves out or what he puts in and to me kind of going along his stories. What I really like is everything in this world seems to be very very heavily symbolic, but it's so symbolic. Actually that it's kind of crazy. Like it's not the real world and the symbols are defying you to read them. But at the end like the always resist this meaning put upon them and that is the aspect of his work that I like or share. Yeah feel. Yeah. I'm can you talk about that a bit maybe? in relation to number and and the writing of that I suppose a number you're definitely trying to people are trying to find out what symbols mean or what the meaning of Of their Affliction is yeah and they tried to pin different meanings on it and some of the meanings move away from them and then some of the meanings they Embrace and that's where their activity is generated from. So especially in number there's one or two images that are I'm quite proud of bush. They can be read in different ways and the characters read them in different ways, but still You're never entirely sure or I maybe I know what they are. But I hope the reader is kind of still guessing one is there's a thing of crows. It's a kind of image or a structure and that is kind of their kind of to taunt the reader. It's kind of nightmare form. And the other is there's a knocking on the door and these things to me. They have a specific meaning but like David doesn't his story. If you remove certain sentences their meaning becomes much more fluid, but then the image that they're placed in is becomes much stacker and you know Sue with David's Story. I mean, there's like we always talked about this the short story, you know being this about distillation and Um, you know concentrating on a single moment or and therefore the language is very precise and and obviously with David that's very much the case. You know, how how does that relate to the writing of a novel for you in terms of you know, you've written stories and novels put look was part of the appeal of moving to novel view. They more expand more space or more room to move. Maneuver through language as opposed or story it definitely allows you to elaborate or seek variations on a theme which the short story often. You must make a choice of the theme or the moment of an in this short story is these gravitate around moments and whereas with the novel you can more fully Or these images or these relationships and stuff like that. So that is very appealing. And what is great in the novel is you get to see the build-up the creation the shift and things like that. Whereas the short story is always asking you to imagine that this is an endpoint of something that matters where as a novel gets that you get to show that and oftentimes that's the kind of it's the pleasure of the journey or something like that. I find I say this but now I'd often find that when we say these things like The short story in the novel. They resist these things you say about Jean and like say for example, David Haden story like it's very full. It's it's it's it's it's covering clearly a period of a few years and it happens. I'd say in seven or eight pages. So it's very full and you have all the tropes you would have a longer novels like you have a fixer character coming in you have the development of a town and you know, so that shorts He does not function in the way a classic 19th century short story functions. It's more like to me. It's more like a kind of modernist. Comedic take on an old tale or like a history and the short story allows you to do that. So at what point did you realize that you were? Writing this the novel malbert it you know the world. What about Point did you decide that that was the world you were going to write your novel and when I decided it was going to be the novel when I decide it was going to be number the numbers the world of Melbourne or the time period and the On the subject matter or when did you think it was all this is going to be novel as opposed to a story or? Okay. Well, there's kind of I suppose there's two different stories there are so the first was a friend of mine called Finbar Dwyer comrade of mine probably and he wrote a book on the plague in Ireland and it was the first book. I think it's the first book length treatment of the plague. Yeah. So anyway, I read that I thought it was interesting. I never really thought about play guitar if you ask me my first novel is going to be A plague over the laughter over to the place and then I kind of went on holidays and Carrie and I was walking around the Ring of Kerry and I kind of just had this idea that where I was walking probably hadn't changed so much in 700 or 800 years and that walking through Ireland was essentially the same experience and I felt this huge connection with the past and all that kind of transcend and stuff and I said sure I give it a go and configuring through my interests of like, you know a rapacious great. Kind of guy now when it became a novel was there's a kind of a to be to the novel where lands are going into town and then the combination town and that's it. That's the journey but then number itself is why it had to be a novel because I wanted to show the townspeople. I want to show what it meant to the townspeople and then going through the town's people involved novel-length treatment. Well, apparently they would Hayden is working on a novel oval at the moment. I'm not sure how far along he is without but you know, sometimes with short story writers, I think you know how amazingly generous they are or spendthrift in a way that they give away so much within the context of a story as opposed to you know, I mean this could easily be something that could ya could run another level, but thankless task writing short stories you want you'll get your reward in heaven. Well, actually I wanted to talk to you about about the the Tactlessness of writing every day and you know how you feel about that. You know, I mean or you publish your novel in the summer and that's your first novel but you'd also published in a novella and a book of stories prior to last. So that's three books out in the world. And you know, how have you experienced the kind of book hangover thing with any of those books or what's about hangover? Well as in the kind of, you know, maybe slight sense of anticlimax about the The getting out of focus and then kind of this kind of coming back down into reality and reality or what we know Arc and then kind of you know, I'm picking yourself up again and said, okay. Well, yeah. Okay. I'm going to want to go back to work. And what is it that motivates has kept, you know keeps you going and where do you see it kind of going from now, you know, I suppose this is a general question I'd ask Honey bunch of but yeah, it's it is the question. Yeah and book hangover. I mean you spend your whole life wanted to write books and then they come out and you're kind of going is they say it but you know, you could say that about any aspect of your life. I do think you need an element of Faith because it's like you say, That if it's just like wait, you're not doing it for some kind of career reason area. You're not doing it because you're going to get Mom the Late Late Show or something like this or you know, I take it to the Oscars you're doing it because you believe in the form and you must believe that the form is vast enough. I'm Grace Randolph and meaningful enough to contain your life and your efforts. Yeah and for that you need Faith you need faith in the novel or the Tori and literature like I hear a lot of people kind of know we're kind of living in a wellness era where people are saying like writing is my therapy. It's who I am writing can be very torturous. Yeah, and it doesn't lead to a more complete human. It certainly doesn't lead to a more complete bank account. It doesn't lead to any of these things. So you must believe in literature. I think now some people say You Must Believe In The Reader, I don't the reader knows what you tell them, you know. But can you remember a point when this kind of hit home for you or like you know, you say that you can't expect to have necessarily career or that's not that's not the game or the time the objective but but it must have been starting at some point, you know was where your expectations did you have to reset your expectations along the way. Yeah. I've wanted to be a writer since I was 12 and it's all I've ever wanted. It and then that's linked to the idea of theirs. What's it called not gold post checkpoints where it's like you get your first short story published Post Yeah mile post something like that - like drift away. That's like Sonic the Hedgehog he gets checkpoints and and you're going through these different stages and at every stage you're saying why why isn't this bigger? Why isn't this better or you're saying why am I lucky like this and so many others aren't so you have all these questions going around and you need to always be kind of going back to base level. So maybe with some people I know I've talked to some people they talk they want to create the feeling of being 14 or 15 when you were reading those great books for the first time and like that's you hold that moment in your head and that kind of gets you through whatever. You know, maybe not bad reviews. But like if you're not reviewed, yeah, or if you don't you're not being read so widely or you know, you send a book out there. And where's it gone? Yeah, you know what? I mean? Like you don't know what's happening with the book. So you're still there on your own waking up in the same bed. So you need to have faith. Yes, and you need to hold onto the reasons why you started doing this. I'm going to be if the reasons I'm still there, you know. Take a break. You don't do it. You don't you don't have to be a writer all the time. Sometimes you can just be an Aegis. Yeah wandering around the place, you know getting coffee. I don't know. Well, I we had miyagawa or give the lecture at Bray literary Festival there a couple weeks ago. And so she chose the topic of product practice and process those three peas, which I may have gotten the wrong order there, but you know in terms of Act two main kind of realization over the Journey of her career up. Well, we've used that word today. I'm kind of realizing that you know, you don't really have all that much control about the price of the product, you know them the product that you produce and that has to go into the marketplace and then the product of yourself, you know, in terms of you know, how you present yourself in terms of to a public or potential readership and then Finding the strength to go on by concentrating on making the product as good as she can make it and that that's what she's come to believe is what you know, certainly motivates her to continue and gives her the faith to keep going is the concert in the product in that way as a not too and not to concentrate on how other people receive the product. Yeah. It's about how much work she puts in to the product of the Elf and that's what does the owner of the chi control control control and the element that she gets drive-through satisfaction from so I don't know if that I think that is more of a comment than a question as you know, well, I mean, it's an extremely interesting thought and it's a very well phrased art and it definitely gives you a lot to think about and work with and I agree with a lot of what MIA says and to me though. The you know, I've said Faith a few times, but to me each book seems like a miracle. You don't know where it comes from. You don't know where it's going and I actually obviously you can't control how your being received and it's Madness to think you can and also it's wrong to care but I think I'm now in the space where I would also think it's Madness to think you could control the work you're doing like, you know, like even the way I said if you had asked me three years ago, I was going to write a book on the plague. I just I would I don't care about the plague is what I would have said something like this and now you don't care. Well, I mean, I didn't know. Yeah, but I mean, you know it yet the plague is just a vehicle for my my career. Yeah use. Yeah, you have to be there at the you have to be there in front of the screen and the keyboard there every day and you have to focus on just it being as good as it can be but You know, I don't know if you can control it yet lands in terms of that keeping that motivation there for you to show up at the desk and that the computer each day or whatever. I'm is it a term? Is it a case of tuna at each day for you or do you let time Slide by or you know just like what is the process for you? And I would say now unkind I was I was always at the computer for three four years and then kind of everything would happen in three or four months and the rest of the time you were kind of messing around. So, I think it's kind of becoming clear that. I'm probably writing six months of every 18 months or two years writing is extremely draining your whole physiology changes your just you become sedentary. You can't really have fun. Like well maybe for other writers it's different. But for me, I can't drink I can't go out and I can't you know, I can't do these things and then you're balancing it with having a job as well. So when you're in a moment you've got Extend that moment and that means Solitude now that is not something I can do indefinitely. Yeah, I it has to be in a burst of three months or six months editing is more enjoyable. You can kind of you're messing around with that. But that burst the creativity you have to respect that. Also. I used to try and spend five or six hours in front of the computer will drive me mental now. I kind of realize you got two hours in you and then you might have another hour later. From the day but I'm in a position now where I Don't Force It. Yeah, I wait for it to come to me. Yeah, but do you have to kind of try all these things outside supposed to find? Oh, yeah find what works for you and I know what it'll work for one book and then it won't work for you Maxwell. It's funny that way yeah, but you know all of this said I mean I were to come out during the summer and looking for the outside anyway cut good reviews and well-reviewed. Reviews and Well published by John Murray, so, you know that must be sustaining in its own way, you know keep you has it kind of giving you a boost to see that the experience that or two. Yeah. Yeah, you must yet you must cultivate gratefulness because like it'll be it could they could never happen again? You know what I mean? It could never happen again. You've got to be prepared for that. I love how I've been reviewed. I got I think two or three Wonderful reviews at that I even thought the quality of the review was excellent as well, obviously because they liked us but no no, but I did think they were excellent. And then even the negative ones I thought they were substantially interesting. Like I was I was very happy with the negative reviews as well if that makes sense as long as you're talking about for me. And so what is next few ocean in terms of writing project or do you have something on the go? Yeah. I'm back in it. Just this last three or four weeks. I changed my job. So I'm not working in the mornings. I find them. I'm it flows much more naturally in the morning. So I have I've had half a novel done for two years that I've been tinkering around with doing nothing with and now I am writing it until Christmas and it's a big toweling mess. Unfortunately. I think it might be another kind of historical thing. But like I said before you don't get to choose, so I'm working on it. Novel and it's set on a boat. So I'll have some fun with that Grace. Well, thanks very much for coming in today. And thanks for reading David story for us and wish you well with the new book Thank You Declan. Thanks everyone for listening to our podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share it with your friends and races on Apple podcasts. Thanks very much to the Arts Council for their ongoing support of the stinging fly and the singing fly press.
Oisín Fagan, novelist and short-story writer, chooses 'Hay', a story by David Hayden which first appeared in our Spring 2010 issue. Oisín Fagan has had fiction published in The Stinging Fly, New Planet Cabaret and the anthology Young Irelanders. He won the inaugural Penny Dreadful Novella Prize for his novella The Heirophants. His debut collection of stories, Hostages, was published in 2016 by New Island, and his first novel, Nobber, was published this year by JM Originals. He currently lives and works in Dublin. David Hayden’s writing has appeared in gorse, the Yellow Nib, the Moth, Stinging Fly, Spolia and the Warwick Review, and his poetry in PN Review. He was shortlisted for the 25th RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story prize. Born in Dublin, he has lived in the US and Australia and is now based in Norwich, UK, where he is currently working on a novel. His debut collection, Darker With The Lights On, was published in 2017 by Little Island. The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish writers to choose a story from the Stinging Fly archive to read and discuss. Previous episodes of the podcast can be found here. The podcast’s theme music is ‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan. All of the Stinging Fly archive is available for subscribers to read – subscribe now and access 20 years of the best new writing. 