said the great, dead-too-young Bill Hicks. I’ve been thumbing though his Love All The People paperback collection this week, looking for chuckles in a blowy Oxford. I’m an old fan of Hicks and can half-recite a clutch of his routines – the incredulous waffle house waitress who catches sight of him hugging a book post-show and tut-tuts, “what yer reading fer?” is a fave – but like all good prose it measures up to revisits. And it stays funny because Hicks was pushing a little further out than most stand-ups, sketching a bigger plan than just dick jokes and observational blather. Hicks had something to say.
I’ve craved laughs after a run of bad news from publishers and peers and an unignorable undertone of book biz disenchantment. This might be caused by a sour and lingering industry-shutdown over the summer or simple flag-bearing fatigue for the book cause but either way it hasn’t chimed well with my latest and most-tremulous of schemes – setting up a small press. In recent weeks I’ve been talking with printers, designers and commissioning eds across several genres, trying to get ideas and fix estimates for launching three YA titles penned by myself. After twenty years of freelancing I feel I ought to be able to publish some books of my own and at least break even, or learn the lesson and retreat shamefaced from the field. There’s a behooven boldness for anyone who wants to call themselves a writer; just tapping out the words is an act of daring. And you can’t live in fear of the unseen ends channeling off from every decision either on the page or in life. You have to ride through the choices and keep breathing and battling and dreaming a little.
At the St Giles’ Fair in Oxford with my kids, musing on the hard work and risks to come, I remembered the words of Field Marshall Foch in a message to his commanders from a 1914 battlefield: Hard pressed on my right. My centre is yielding. Impossible to manoeuvre. Situation excellent. I am attacking. And it struck me that it’s either that, the boldness, or acquiesce. I watched the people on the rides flash by, whirling and shrieking, their faces shot with fright or adrenalized glee, and I thought of Hicks. You have to keep getting on the ride. Bony-fingered misanthropy will only ensnare you and chew you up if you turn away from the ticket booth. So I hopped on the dodgems with my youngest and pushed the pedal to the floor.
