Maps fascinated me, even as a kid. Two in particular stood out: TSR’s Map of Greyhawk and of course the maps created by the old master himself, JRR Tolkein. What would a Sea of Black Ice look like, standing on its shore? What lay off to the West, where the elven ships are bound?

My own sketches in service of the novel are, at best, utilitarian. In my mind, I picture florid seventeenth-century fonts, small illustrations for cities, careless arcs for hills and even a fanciful kraken in the bottom right panel filling what would otherwise be an empty and unremarkable patch of blue. I uncap my pen, hunch over my desk, and go to work. But when I pull back, I’ve got something that looks like the work of an experienced cartographer… after he slammed his fingers in the car door, blinded himself with a stream of pepper spray and gulped down a half-dozen shots of well vodka.

Boy, I wish I could draw.