"As above, not so below."
A day of publishing is drawing closer as the release of Everison marks a new milestone for Folk Utopia and myself. In some ways everything about this story is a departure from my old scratching yet still very much a tale set in the same worldviews I have always expressed.
Outside of The Road to Folk Utopia short stories I feel like this is as close to grounded as I want to get. Angel Suraci and Susagep Patel are in for a life altering adventure that I can only hint at here but the path is worth it. Tales of Reign sits deeply in first person narratives from several points of view in Further Tales and more, Everison though, is a third person narrative from many points of view. That doesn't mean the story loses any of the intimacy of TOR, it simply allows for more input from rich characters both flawed and relatable.
An Arch and a Journey
Everison is told in four parts, each building on the last, each entry contains six chapters, twenty-four in all. I wanted to travel with these characters, live their footsteps and feel how they felt as the world they are apart of begins to shape them, and they struggle to steer the future from that direction. Angel and Sue want the simple things, love, honest accomplishments and family, yet somehow their moment in time exists under circumstances well beyond their control. Ever-present is a foreboding cloud both metaphorical and real preventing the light needed to guide them home, wherever that is. Any fantastical element is justified by the setting and though some of the historical value is left to a lost age, the more informed the main characters become the more some of those mysteries for them become rites of personal growth.
Back to Pen and Paper
I had posted previously about the importance of art in all of my story telling. This isn't intended to spoil the narrative more than dip the reader into a more realized version of the world they are engaging. I fully trust the imagination of others but a story like Tales of Reign or Everison have grand details and visionary atmospheres that I see clearly. For Everison, that meant the art should reflect a lost journal, sketches like breadcrumbs that were once the view from safety, from curious eyes, or stuck in a memory. Returning to a standard sketchbook with pencils and ink pens felt like I was finalizing the journey having been there. As simple and ordinary as the four sketches are, once deep into the stories of these characters, the reader can fully appreciate their purpose.
New Horizons from Everison
Everison happened or at least began on an airplane during the COVID 19 pandemic, lending aspects of the story feeling freshly lived as we all still adjust to the 'new normal'. even with life on hold I had planned on releasing a new book with a new publisher, it just wasn't this story, but something felt right about Everison as it grew into a book, something in the flow led me in a new direction. Given the strange turn that 2020 took I began working toward making changes myself; the plan- release with B&N, Barnes and Nobles publisher, very soon. Currently everything looks very good for this to happen sooner than later, I am tying all the ends together and looking for a fair-weather release. I'm hoping that the readers will be there and that with them they bring their walking shoes, at least mentally, for the journey ahead.
Angel and Sue are on their way regardless.
Mw