QUESTION & ANSWER WITH MARY HAYS on WHY SHE LOVES HER NIDDY-NODDY Hays will talk about weaving, hobbies, and the flow state on March 12, 7 pm, at Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. David Dobbs: Why the niddy-noddy? And what is a niddy-noddy? Mary Hays: I have always loved the name and when I took up spinning (after taking up sheep, etc. etc.) I couldn't wait to get one (it may even be why I took up spinning—there have been lesser reasons). It's an old and ingenious tool for winding and measuring handspun yarn. The word itself signifies an object bobbing about because you flip a niddy-noddy around with your wrist as you wind the yarn on. It was sometimes called a willie-nillie (not such a bad name either), from the popular question, “will ye, nil ye?” asked by children and indecisive adults in the 1700s trying to figure out what someone is going to do. For its political implications in colonial America, see The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a marvelous book. The implications have to do with the boycott on domestic goods from England and the popularity of spinning circles during the Revolution, at which tea was definitely not served. But that might be more than you wanted to know. DD: Which came first for you -- writing fiction or weaving? And how did you get started on each? Hays: Oh, fiction came first. I wrote my first novel when I was 14 as an act of revenge on the adults in my family who insisted on treating me as though I were 14. My main character, possibly named Mary, runs away from an oppressive home atmosphere and lives a glamorous life in Barre, Vermont, as a dressmaker. Really! I’m not kidding! I remember getting her a room in that hotel on Main Street which is something like an SRO now and I remember that she smoked cigarettes out on the piazza. I must have realized, though, that my novel lacked a little something because I got rid of it before anybody saw it. I got started weaving because after I learned to spin, I had an awful lot of yarn. DD: Weaving and novel-writing would seem to have a lot in common -- or is that a misguided cliche? How are they alike and how NOT alike? Hays: I think they are quite alike: you have to plan out your project to a certain extent and then see how it looks and readjust as you go, throwing out your bad ideas as soon as you can so you don’t have to take the whole thing out and start over; you have to be careful of knots; you have to be careful of breaking the thread; you have to remain calm even as you despair over your wretched mistakes; you have to achieve some kind of rhythm in your work so you can go the distance; and you have to finish. That is the big thing. In weaving, the material winds around a beam and you can only see a little bit of it at a time until you take it off the loom. With a novel, you have to get to the end to understand your story’s scope. And so that you can start all over on another draft. I think it was E. L. Doctorow who said that writing a novel is like driving a car in the fog—you can only see a little bit of the road at a time but you have to keep on going if you want to get there. There’s a lot of faith required. DD: Do you ever consciously carry lessons from weaving to your novel writing? I find, for instance, that thinking of musical forms, such as the sonata form, is helpful in writing long articles or books. Do you ever find that weaving provides you with structural or more fine-grained parallels that help you in planning or writing your novels? Hays: I am only a beginning weaver and all I can do is hope for the best and that my sides aren’t too crooked. I feel the same way about writing sometimes. DD: This flow state you speak of -- is it similar to the "zone" that athletes speak of, or is it thought to be different? Hays: I think it’s similar. And I think it comes about in a lot of things we do, especially if we are deeply focused. That’s why I love hobbies in general, because I think the humble hobby is less about achieving, which involves the ego, and more about solving problems. I believe we are at our creative best when we are figuring things out, no matter how trivial the final product might seem to others. We forget to ask ourselves “is this good?” or “am I good at this?” and instead we’re totally immersed in the problem at hand. Hobbies are something we do because we love them. DD: I suppose that when you're really going well on a novel you get in a flow state doing that as well. Does that happen, or am I romanticizing? Hays: I think it’s true. You get out of your head and into that world that you are imagining, you’re there, you smell it, see it, hear it. You step across that strange boundary and you’re not in this world anymore. And then you come back and life is going on just as it was while you were away in that other place but the toilet is leaking now. When the writing is not going well you’re calling the plumber before you’ve finished writing the first sentence or you may have set a little dish on the floor to catch the drips until your husband gets home. (Though he may go into a flow state while immersed in the plumbing problem.) There’s a social psychologist by the name of Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi at the U. of Chicago who writes about the flow state and it’s totally fascinating stuff. He says that the normal condition of the mind is chaos, which I can readily believe at about 2 a.m. when my own mind is so poorly supervised. Flow comes about from goal-directed activities which challenge us to use our skills to the utmost. And, it makes us happy—what Csikszentimihalyi calls “unfolding our being.” Children get this naturally when they are free to explore the world and learn new things. DD: Other times the flow you get doing something else can help. For instance, I find that certain flow-state producing activities, such as running or sometimes (wierdly) cleaning, seem to let me solve writing problems I couldn't solve sitting at my desk. Suddenly it jumps out at you: a structural problem is solved, or you suddenly see how a character will react to something, or some muddy thematic issue becomes clear. Does this ever happen to you when you weave? Hays: Is that how you spell weirdly??? Yes, sometimes you have to step away. That old mind is a funny thing; I think you can stun it through too much dogged determination and it’s only when you turn your back on the impasse you’re at and get out the vacuum cleaner (or broom—my favorite—but spinning is great for this too) that it comes alive again. Also, I think we often “get” things when we look out of the corner of our eye or change our bodily posture and bend down to scoop up the offending dust kitty. Sometimes cooking is good too, especially while drinking wine. DD: Okay, horrible dilemma: Say you had to give up either your pen or your niddy-noddy. Which goes in the can? Hays: Maybe I could attach a nib to the noddy and write with that? DD: Not a thing wrong with that. You have one deservedly acclaimed novel published and are closing in on finishing a second. Dare tell us what the second one is about? Hays: My pleasure. It’s about a man who has women trouble. Four women, no less: his landlady, his girlfriend, his other girlfriend, and an unwed teenage mother. There might be a few other women in there giving him trouble too because it’s all about celebrating troublemakers. It’s called Splitting Stone and takes place in Quarry City, a place not unlike Barre, Vermont, at the end of the 1950s. © Mary Hays, 2008

QUESTION & ANSWER WITH MARY HAYS

on WHY SHE LOVES HER NIDDY-NODDY

Hays will talk about weaving, hobbies, and the flow state on March 12, 7 pm,

at Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier.

David Dobbs: Why the niddy-noddy? And what is a niddy-noddy?

Mary Hays: I have always loved the name and when I took up spinning (after taking up sheep, etc. etc.) I couldn't wait to get one (it may even be why I took up spinning—there have been lesser reasons). It's an old and ingenious tool for winding and measuring handspun yarn. The word itself signifies an object bobbing about because you flip a niddy-noddy around with your wrist as you wind the yarn on. It was sometimes called a willie-nillie (not such a bad name either), from the popular question, “will ye, nil ye?” asked by children and indecisive adults in the 1700s trying to figure out what someone is going to do. For its political implications in colonial America, see The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a marvelous book. The implications have to do with the boycott on domestic goods from England and the popularity of spinning circles during the Revolution, at which tea was definitely not served. But that might be more than you wanted to know.

DD: Which came first for you -- writing fiction or weaving? And how did you get started on each?

Hays: Oh, fiction came first. I wrote my first novel when I was 14 as an act of revenge on the adults in my family who insisted on treating me as though I were 14. My main character, possibly named Mary, runs away from an oppressive home atmosphere and lives a glamorous life in Barre, Vermont, as a dressmaker. Really! I’m not kidding! I remember getting her a room in that hotel on Main Street which is something like an SRO now and I remember that she smoked cigarettes out on the piazza. I must have realized, though, that my novel lacked a little something because I got rid of it before anybody saw it.

I got started weaving because after I learned to spin, I had an awful lot of yarn.

DD: Weaving and novel-writing would seem to have a lot in common -- or is that a misguided cliche? How are they alike and how NOT alike?

Hays: I think they are quite alike: you have to plan out your project to a certain extent and then see how it looks and readjust as you go, throwing out your bad ideas as soon as you can so you don’t have to take the whole thing out and start over; you have to be careful of knots; you have to be careful of breaking the thread; you have to remain calm even as you despair over your wretched mistakes; you have to achieve some kind of rhythm in your work so you can go the distance; and you have to finish. That is the big thing. In weaving, the material winds around a beam and you can only see a little bit of it at a time until you take it off the loom. With a novel, you have to get to the end to understand your story’s scope. And so that you can start all over on another draft. I think it was E. L. Doctorow who said that writing a novel is like driving a car in the fog—you can only see a little bit of the road at a time but you have to keep on going if you want to get there. There’s a lot of faith required.

DD: Do you ever consciously carry lessons from weaving to your novel writing? I find, for instance, that thinking of musical forms, such as the sonata form, is helpful in writing long articles or books. Do you ever find that weaving provides you with structural or more fine-grained parallels that help you in planning or writing your novels?

Hays: I am only a beginning weaver and all I can do is hope for the best and that my sides aren’t too crooked. I feel the same way about writing sometimes.

DD: This flow state you speak of -- is it similar to the "zone" that athletes speak of, or is it thought to be different?

Hays: I think it’s similar. And I think it comes about in a lot of things we do, especially if we are deeply focused. That’s why I love hobbies in general, because I think the humble hobby is less about achieving, which involves the ego, and more about solving problems. I believe we are at our creative best when we are figuring things out, no matter how trivial the final product might seem to others. We forget to ask ourselves “is this good?” or “am I good at this?” and instead we’re totally immersed in the problem at hand. Hobbies are something we do because we love them.

DD: I suppose that when you're really going well on a novel you get in a flow state doing that as well. Does that happen, or am I romanticizing?

Hays: I think it’s true. You get out of your head and into that world that you are imagining, you’re there, you smell it, see it, hear it. You step across that strange boundary and you’re not in this world anymore. And then you come back and life is going on just as it was while you were away in that other place but the toilet is leaking now. When the writing is not going well you’re calling the plumber before you’ve finished writing the first sentence or you may have set a little dish on the floor to catch the drips until your husband gets home. (Though he may go into a flow state while immersed in the plumbing problem.)

There’s a social psychologist by the name of Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi at the U. of Chicago who writes about the flow state and it’s totally fascinating stuff. He says that the normal condition of the mind is chaos, which I can readily believe at about 2 a.m. when my own mind is so poorly supervised. Flow comes about from goal-directed activities which challenge us to use our skills to the utmost. And, it makes us happy—what Csikszentimihalyi calls “unfolding our being.” Children get this naturally when they are free to explore the world and learn new things.

DD: Other times the flow you get doing something else can help. For instance, I find that certain flow-state producing activities, such as running or sometimes (wierdly) cleaning, seem to let me solve writing problems I couldn't solve sitting at my desk. Suddenly it jumps out at you: a structural problem is solved, or you suddenly see how a character will react to something, or some muddy thematic issue becomes clear. Does this ever happen to you when you weave?

Hays: Is that how you spell weirdly??? Yes, sometimes you have to step away. That old mind is a funny thing; I think you can stun it through too much dogged determination and it’s only when you turn your back on the impasse you’re at and get out the vacuum cleaner (or broom—my favorite—but spinning is great for this too) that it comes alive again. Also, I think we often “get” things when we look out of the corner of our eye or change our bodily posture and bend down to scoop up the offending dust kitty. Sometimes cooking is good too, especially while drinking wine.

DD: Okay, horrible dilemma: Say you had to give up either your pen or your niddy-noddy. Which goes in the can?

Hays: Maybe I could attach a nib to the noddy and write with that?

DD: Not a thing wrong with that.

You have one deservedly acclaimed novel published and are closing in on finishing a second. Dare tell us what the second one is about?

Hays: My pleasure. It’s about a man who has women trouble. Four women, no less: his landlady, his girlfriend, his other girlfriend, and an unwed teenage mother. There might be a few other women in there giving him trouble too because it’s all about celebrating troublemakers. It’s called Splitting Stone and takes place in Quarry City, a place not unlike Barre, Vermont, at the end of the 1950s.

Novelist Mary Hays, of East Corinth, is best known for her novel Learning to Drive, in which she wove a rich fabric of “mesmerizing prose and darkly complex characters” (Publishers Weekly). Like all good novels, Learning to Drive offers a memorable immersive experience. Her talk at Kellogg-Hubbard will describe how weaving with yarn and a few favorite tools -- including the niddy-noddy -- puts her in another immersive condition, the “flow” state.

“I admire all hobbies,” says Hays, “from pasting sequins onto coffee cans to chasing butterflies. No matter what their purpose, or lack of purpose, they can soothe the frazzled circuits of our modern-day psyches, slow our racing hearts, and give us something to talk about with strangers on a bus.”

Mary’s most recent short fiction has appeared in Hunger Mountain, Tiferet, and Seven Days. She lives in Corinth with her husband, Stephen Long, and is working on a second novel.

Mary Hays

“Why I Love My Niddy-Noddy:

Weaving, Hobbies, and the Flow State”