[ Image description: fairly primitive map labelled “Amber Heights”. It is a valley, roughly oriented east-west with east at the top, showing topographical lines and buildings indicated in outline. A road, “to the Grove”, comes in from the north; the main buildings of the town are on the south side of the valley and are marked out: “Mill”, “Guest House & Bath House”, “Chapel”, “Stables”, “First’s House”, “Water Tower”. There is a dammed “Mill Pond” towards the southeast. A little north and south of the main square is the Library, and off along the northwest side of the valley is “Aunt Lorenza”. A notation at the bottom (west) side of the picture has an arrow pointing northwest and states “to the mineworks”. End ID. ]
I sometimes find it helpful to draw maps when writing, just to keep things straight in my mind when it comes to describing how people move through space. It helped when writing “Connection” to map out the palace at Tanaja and I think it’s going to help here, too.
The nice thing is that I find that when I draw these things, things that normally wouldn’t occur to me pop into my head, and give me insights that might come in handy later. For example, that building all the way to the south that looks like it’s built into the side of the cliff there actually is, because it’s been built not just to serve as a warehouse, but also as an entrance to caves that the populace uses as (essentially) community refrigeration & root cellaring (a la the caverns in Frank Herberts “The Santaroga Barrier”, which is an excellent book).
This would likely never have entered my mind as a detail if I hadn’t sat down and sketched this out. I highly recommend non-writing processes like these for anyone who’s involved in writing -- I know ymmv, but for me, it’s really useful and inspiring.
( An entry for 2022′s @creativesolstice )
