Ned Hayes's Blog, page 59
January 13, 2015
January 12, 2015
“Fog lifts in the valley, rising as mist through the bare limbed...
“Fog lifts in the valley, rising as mist through the bare limbed trees. Far below, the deeping combe with our village in the heart of it. My whole world for nearly a decade has been contained in that place – and now the village of Duns is so small. I hold up my hand, form a circle with my fingers. Now the distant village seems a child’s plaything that I can hold in my own hand, wreathed in gossamer mist.”
PHOTO: 0003_1A by ben giesbrecht on Flickr.
January 11, 2015
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included...
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I learned that her secret lavender and mint beds were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, and she was as a child who gathers flowers in May.”
— from the novel SINFUL FOLK
I have been trying to write for a while now. I have all these amazing ideas, but its really hard getting my thoughts onto paper. Thus, my ideas never really come to fruition. Do you have any advice?
Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it.
I’m just kidding. There are much easier ways of doing it. For example: On the top of a distant mountain there grows a tree with silver leaves. Once every year, at dawn on April 30th, this tree blossoms, with five flowers, and over the next hour each blossom becomes a berry, first a green berry, then black, then golden.
At the moment the five berries become golden, five white crows, who have been waiting on the mountain, and which you will have mistaken for snow, will swoop down on the tree, greedily stripping it of all its berries, and will fly off, laughing.
You must catch, with your bare hands, the smallest of the crows, and you must force it to give up the berry (the crows do not swallow the berries. They carry them far across the ocean, to an enchanter’s garden, to drop, one by one, into the mouth of his daughter, who will wake from her enchanted sleep only when a thousand such berries have been fed to her). When you have obtained the golden berry, you must place it under your tongue, and return directly to your home.
For the next week, you must speak to no-one, not even your loved ones or a highway patrol officer stopping you for speeding. Say nothing. Do not sleep. Let the berry sit beneath your tongue.
At midnight on the seventh day you must go to the highest place in your town (it is common to climb on roofs for this step) and, with the berry safely beneath your tongue, recite the whole of Fox in Socks. Do not let the berry slip from your tongue. Do not miss out any of the poem, or skip any of the bits of the Muddle Puddle Tweetle Poodle Beetle Noodle Bottle Paddle Battle.
Then, and only then, can you swallow the berry. You must return home as quickly as you can, for you have only half an hour at most before you fall into a deep sleep.
When you wake in the morning, you will be able to get your thoughts and ideas down onto the paper, and you will be a writer.
January 10, 2015
January 9, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:
"April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake...
BOOK QUOTE:
"April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. They wait all night with open eyes. Now, with the rain at dawn, their voices make melody." I imagine my mother calling to me, her words echoing across the years. Every night, I slip into the empty winter land of memory."
— from the novel Sinful Folk, by Ned Hayes
January 8, 2015
January 7, 2015
January 6, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life...
BOOK QUOTE:
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I learned that her secret lavender and mint beds were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, and she was as a child who gathers flowers in May.”
— from the novel SINFUL FOLK
January 5, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:
"April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake...
BOOK QUOTE:
"April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. They wait all night with open eyes. Now, with the rain at dawn, their voices make melody." I imagine my mother calling to me, her words echoing across the years. Every night, I slip into the empty winter land of memory."
— from the novel Sinful Folk, by Ned Hayes
