Last night I sketched a map. A secondary world map, for Nights of Villjamur. There are some who may think this stretches into true nerdism, and you may be right, but I can’t deny it felt good. Can’t have a fantasy without a map, many say.
There’s something thoroughly satisfying about putting the world I was writing about into a visual form. Although, it has to be said that my sketch was truly appalling, and the guys at Macmillan are going to get a cartographer on the case to translate the lines I hacked into the paper into something altogether more pleasing to the eye. Cartographer = awesome.
In the meantime, here are two links about old/antique map collections, for all the map geeks out there, at the British Library, and Hipkiss’ scans of old maps.
;0) I know how you feel. I’d actually sketched one out from the start because I kept forgetting where everything was, but I made sure I kept it hidden from everyone who’d mock my geekiness.
Imagine then the sense of shame I felt at this epileptic spider’s scribble when I had to email a picture of it to Orion for them to pass on to a cartographer. If I ever meet him I suspect I’ll involuntarily start apologising and making excuses!
Hi Tom,
Maybe we should start a “Mapped and Proud” movement…
And I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t draw. Suffice to say if I was Chief Cartographer with the British Empire, they’d have conquered no further than the Isle of Wight.
Well, maybe mapped and just-a-little-bit-ashamed-but-also-quite-pleased might be more accurate!
If we’d found the Isle of Wight with my maps we’d have called it Ireland I suspect.