#MondayMatters...handy #mapwork

Monday Matters...

Today was a reasonably productive day. With about 4 hours of guaranteed writing related time, I delved straight in to creating the maps for Book 4 of my Celtic Fervour Series. Domestic Mondays are the norm for me, plus some ad hoc drop-in time from my grandkids. When the outer doors to their house and mine are wide open in this fabulous weather, they're in and out like yo-yos. 

But back to map making... Since a reviewer quite rightly pointed out, after Book 1 was published, that a map would have been useful, I've created maps for all of Books 1, 2 & 3 when they were re-published under Ocelot Press.

Agricola's Bane Tribal Map

I've focused on producing a tribal map, and a map of locations used, for the first three books of the series, but this time around for Book 4 - Agricola's Bane - it was difficult to do a locations map which included sufficient detail to be read on a typical page of a 5" X 8  "paperback novel.

I, therefore, decided to make three maps and will see how that fits in when it comes to formatting the book.

It's been easier to create my own blank Great Britain outline, because nothing I've found online, and can use legitimately, is quite right for my needs. It's sometimes a bit finicky making theses simple maps, but it's a task I really enjoy doing!

My map of tribes relies heavily on translations of the names from the map of Ptolemy.(Cosmographia/Geographia) I've used these since there are no other known names of northern Britannic tribes and, for me, it seemed wrong to invent names. In using Ptolemy's names, I have already used a bit of authorial licence because Ptolemy would have been creating his Cosmographia nd Geographia some 50 years after General Gnaeus Iulius Agricola was in Britannia.

However, as I wrote my novel, I decided it isn't too much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that some of the names came originally from Agricola's northern Britannia campaigns, and were handed down to Ptolemy (possibly via Tacitus or other unknowns).

After my next two-day stint watching my grandkids (Tuesday and Wednesday) I'll be on to completing more of the Front and End Matter for Agricola's Bane. My 'Author Notes' might just take a while to write because I used heaps and heaps of resources to create the novel, and some might need a bit more of an explanation than others. Like the mapwork.

What do you think of the clarity? Does it read easily? 

Till more Agricola's Bane news... enjoy the week.

Slainthe!