Paksworld

The maps in the Paks books and the Gird book (reproduced a little larger in the trade paperback omnibuses) are only part of the original map of this story-world.   Somewhere there’s the first sketchy map (hole-punched and put in a 3-ring binder along with many other useful bits that would’ve made starting this set of books much easier)  and the BIG map to which I transferred things from the first sketchy map and other more limited site maps.

It’s not where it was.  It’s not near where it was.  It’s what my friend Esther called SITH…Somewhere in This House, only in this case somewhere in either this house or the other.

The publisher, naturally, wants a map or two or three.   Desultory and sporadic “looking for” said map is turning into a full-bore search & rescue mission, but it’s been too long and the relevant parts of both houses are stuffed with stuff that’s been acquired since, or moved there from other parts of both houses (e.g., computers and printers from the Ancient Past, books, more books, papers, more papers, more books and papers….)  I hate looking for things, because such looking clearly demonstrates my lack of proper organizational skills for stuff.   My mother could pack an amazing amount of stuff into any volume of space, perfectly organized and so she knew where everything (down to the last knitting needle, tapestry frame, 1.5 skeins of a specific yarn, left-handed collywobbler) was.

I can’t.  She had an engineer mind.  I have a writer mind.  Things have deterioratedin household organization  in the 20 years since she died.  That’s putting it mildly.

Nobody can redo that map but me, and I can’t remember exactly how, for instance, the borders of the physical kingdoms run.   Exactly where the fall line is on the Honnorgat, exactly how the river turns, etc.   Way back, I worked out the geology of the whole thing, so the rivers, hills, mountains, etc. make some sort of sense.  But do I remember where I put the plunging syncline?  Or was it an anticline?   Which hills were basalt/granite and which were sandstone, limestone, shale?

NEED THE MAP.  NEED THE BACKGROUND NOTES.

(Writer slopes off, muttering.  Can’t look now, farrier’s due to trim the horses.  But after…where the [many bad words] is that map?  (And will it be complete enough when I find it?)

Advice to others beginning the trek towards writerdom:  do not put your “someday I’ll need this again really badly” stuff away “somewhere safe.”  Put it where you fall over it every day, even if the next time you need it is 20-something years down the line.