I should really be working on my newspaper articles right now but Iām just saying screw it and doing other writing. Iām an ink-stained wretch regardless. Iām moved to talk about my idea for Prism Thread Books. The idea is pretty dead in the water right now. I was going to self-publish a novel last fall but that has hit obstacles and the ease and flow of self-publishing with Amazon has become more difficult in my mind with the recent interviews that William Duryea has done over starting a press. Those were fantastic interviews, all great and informative, but I have to say, the only interview that really gave me hope and optimism was the one with Jeff Schneider of Pig Roast Publishing. It seems pretty bleak to be trapped in worrying about the practicalities of it all, and the grinding worries about money. Itās all money, itās the only thing that has any material weight about these things. Or at least you would think so to hear people talk about art and literature and publishing. Substack writing is essentially free. I am nowhere closer to setting up paid subscriptions for this newsletter and a part of me thinks it may not happen. I just donāt know if I have that temperament or that ability to organize and figure out how to make an income. Years of being on disability have made me actually fearful of making an income. But enough about that, thatās my problem and not yours.
Prism Thread is just an idea which has a hold over me. Itās essentially just me going: I know what a good book would look like, and I wish I could publish those books and make it work. The goals are hazy. Some of it might just be arrogance. But the arrogance, or confidence, or belief in oneās self never overpowers the apprehension and terror that I wonāt know how to technically do it. This kind of comes from the Duryea conversations which spent a lot of time on the practical and financial difficulties. I had this thought that if I were going to have a press Iād like to do it with other people and make it a collective effort. It might help overcome the trepidation if I could work with others and talk over the problems. Thatās kind of how it worked with Cialis, Verdi, Gin, Jag which letās face it, was really published by Anxiety Press. Part of the shortcoming of that was that I didnāt bounce back within months and put out another book under my own label. I just didnāt want it enough.
The cynicism and loathing directed at writers and publishers, by other writers and publishers, and often directed at the self, is substantial and a major block.
Recently I saw āMorgenredeā (I think thatās how you spell it) self-publish a book. I need to read that book. But he did it through Amazon and itās like, yeah, thereās a book. It happened. Itās real. Itās possible. In some ways itās him I want to take cues from, and not Stuart Buck, Daniel Ross, or Jeff Schneider. All good people and all sharing loads of wisdom about publishing. And I want to hear more from them. But I evidently donāt need to hear wisdom to do it, I need to hear about how to fucking do a kamikaze run and just blow yourself up and just do it. Overcome the fear and take action, even if itās a disaster. Be impractical and unrealistic. Donāt care about the money. Donāt care about much of anything. Zine culture, DIY culture, punk culture, underground culture. I donāt care if you donāt like how it looks. The quality will be something for me to worry about and if you can catch those rays, fine, if not then fuck you: obviously this was never meant for you to begin with.
Another diverting thing is: just be the writer of books and go the traditional route of trying to get other people to publish them. I just got a glimmer of hope from a press who says theyāre going to read one of my manuscripts. A novel I just recently talked about in this newsletter. Itās a slender hope. Itās risking rejection but itās just like: I came this far. And Iām getting a small grain of sand of evidence that theyāre going to at least read it. Another thing happened which is that I heard that Apocalypse Confidential may be publishing books eventually. I sent off an email to Jacob Everett and William Waltz over there at AC just expressing interest and telling them about some specific book manuscripts I have completed or am writing, and they seem enthused and like they want to open talks about it all with me once they get situated. Thatās cool. Iām going to try it. Thatās got me feeling some hope. Also, I submitted a small weird book to a pretty out there publishing outfit and it was kindly rejected but they gave me ideas for other places to try. So thatās a kind of hope. None of it is real as of this moment. But can you understand how this sort of lessens the pressures and worries about starting my own venue?
I made a zine last year called Prism Thread which had one issue. That was fun but you know, I might just be the wrong type of person to be an editor and organizer, even if a cheap 90s style photocopied zine. I donāt have the stick-to-it-iveness, the gumption, the chutzpah, the take your pick of old style words meaning passion or industry. Itās work. Am I a worker? I contribute to the Last Estate, the arts and culture magazine run by my friends. That feels like work sometimes, work I SOMETIMES donāt want to do. So if I donāt want to work do I deserve any of the good things that come with being published? Thereās an imbalance. Partially itās not getting paid. But put that aside because itās a pipe dream fantasy anyway. No oneās making money, everybody says that. Some are making money but the pathway to getting paid is lost in the thicket and I canāt see it, itās invisible. Other than my newspaper writing which does pay and I live off that. But you know whatās a good feeling? When someone in my geographic vicinity comes up to me and tells me they like my articles. Somebody read me and tells me they liked my writing. It sounds like cheese product but thatās a good feeling. I recently heard that Peter Schjeldahl the New Yorker art critic who is kind of a big deal in that world, before he passed away in Oct 2022 I think it was, read my crime novel Blood Trip and enjoyed it. Thatās a good feeling!
At Last Estate when I turn in an essay or review or whatever, my colleagues read it for editing and often they say āgood job.ā Thatās a good feeling, tempered slightly by the fact that weāre colleagues and itās a professional relationship more or less. So theyāre reading me for work, in a certain sort of way. Still valuable but like part of a production schedule, a routine. Your thing in Last Estate comes out and people like it on twitter. Thatās good but it doesnāt feel as satisfying as somebody coming up to tell you, at the post office where you live, that they liked your newspaper article. You know what Iām saying? Then we get into the ethical murky zone of: but who liked my Last Estate piece of my book review at Pink Plastic House? Were they the people ā who I love ā who dependably like pretty much anything I do? Or were they some ānewā person, from a new territory and a new angle who noticed me? Am I a terrible bastard if I value some likes more than others.
The ethical murk comes from the inevitable thought: āhow can these new people noticing me and my writing further my career? How can this be a boon to networking and meeting new people?ā You start seeing yourself as a user of people. The ladder rungs call out to you, like Sirens. You have to climb them. You have to climb them to get to the higher fame and fortune. And something about that is so repellent while at the same time oh so attractive. Why shouldnāt you further yourself? Why shouldnāt you believe in yourself? Why shouldnāt you seek publication? I recently heard some friends badmouth authorās bios. Like if you put down credits and awards and that kind of thing youāre a bad person and youāre vain. Ironically, the people saying this ā and I bring this up not to be a dick but to cover all the angles ā those people havenāt really had much tangible success, if youāre measuring success by publications and that kind of awful, despicable, corrupt, conceited, careerist metric for success. People love to hate on authors bios. And some of the biggest haters are people who would, like, never be able to accomplish shit. So bear that in mind around the water coolers in indie lit land. I mean, I hate to be all Donald Trump and call people losers. Because by so many important ways of measuring it, Iām the biggest loser there is. I have so many faults and shortcomings and blind spots and ethically I feel pretty dirty about some of the things that cross my mind about what to do to get ahead as a writer (I donāt really do them, as far as Iām aware, but I think about them). But I also have this faint light struggling in me that wants to believe in myself and take pride in the fact that, you know what, these last two years have actually been good for me as a writer and Iāve accomplished things that three or four years ago, I wouldnāt have thought possible.
I want to have a press and make big decisions and put out my version of what I think is good. I want to do this because I want to be rich and powerful. No Iām just kidding obviously, but somewhere there exists a golden thesaurus, a book of synonyms that lists words for ārichā and āpowerful,ā words that have been shorn of associations and connotations that make us cringe. I do want the power to make art. I do want the power to say to another artist: Iām going to support your art and try to help you get it out there and be seen. I do want the riches, not monetarily I guess, I suppose, but the cultural wealth of being in an artistic community and having people āvalueā my opinion and my word. I want to have some fucking weight and importance. Itās selfish on a certain level. But maybe decades down the line (if weāre still writing and making art and not struggling for physical survival) I want someone to look back and say, āWow, Jesse Hilson was not only a good artist himself but he could look at the ocean of art around him and was capable of helping to make a great Discrimination about what was signal and what was noise.ā Because thereās a fuckload of noise and mediocrity and stuff that just isnāt good. Iām sorry. Thatās what I think. And some people have got the antennae to lock onto other people and say āthis work is aesthetically good and interesting and this isnāt.ā I want to hang out with those people. I see them as brothers and sisters in a big struggle. Rimbaud apparently hated military metaphors for art, like āavant garde.ā So I wonāt make it out like we as artists are in a war for the soul of humanity. That war might already be lost. I donāt know what the metaphor is, yet. But there is some work that weāre doing, some collective effort pointing at Something Bigger. And the tricky thing about the collective is that weāre doing it as individuals who are sometimes in open competition with each other. And thereās not cooperation. Thereās strife. Anyway? Thatās enough.
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Books Iām actively reading right now:
George Steiner - After Babel (about translation and linguistics, fascinating)
Hugh Kenner - The Pound Era (really intricate hybrid biography/criticism/history about Ezra Pound and his contemporaries)
Robert Polizzotti - Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton (biography about the history of Surrealism in France in the 1920s and 30s, so far ā the collective of artists vs the charisma of the individual artist and leader)
Thomas Moynihan - Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History (totally whacked out book of ātheory-fictionā about the physiology and science of the spinal cord: nature, philosophy, symbolism, literature. Itās a really fucked up book and lots of it is over my head but still really cool and dank)
Re/Search Books - The JG Ballard number (just got this. Ballard was a bit of a creep and a freak but still a fascinating writer on fame, dread, paranoia, technology, history, science fiction etc)
Another anxious fan locked in. Peeking over your shoulder to see how the variety of publishing plans might or might not work out. Some day I'll be bold enough to move a book forward. I hope. Until then, best of luck to you.
I enjoy reading you, Jesse! So there, one fan locked in....