I’m slowly feeling better, and now it no longer hurts to breathe. So thank you all for the concern. However, each time my roommate Kelechi walks into the room I start coughing again. Perhaps I am allergic to a mix of Kelechi and doors being opened.
I blame a mix of an excellent immune system and power metal for my severely rapid recovery. There’s nothing like the sound of a soul-shaking bass to get the blood flowing a little bit. That’s a good part of how I’ve bonded with a third of the males on this dormitory hall – gaming, metal and our love for the ’90s. I wish the latter wasn’t as much of a thing. It just so happened that there was a ’90s-themed night, and we all felt compelled to go the full mile. This involved me shaving my beard into a goatee based off Kurt Cobain’s facial hair. Now I miss my fuller beard. But it’ll be ok, I think. At least I got to show off knowing all the lyrics to the “Fresh Prince” theme. This is even more amusing because I know I can’t rap to save my life.
In the meantime, I’m trying to get the things in my head out of my head and on paper. That involves not only doing more things with the second draft of the book, but also making a map. This may seem like a simple thing to most people, but it is not. Now I have to have actual distances, directions, relations and landmarks. I must officially decide what to call that mountain range from the beginning of the book. Black Mountains, Espya Mountains? Make them two separate things? I don’t know.
It involves math, too. That makes me sad. I hate math. I have to ask, well, how quickly was this guy or gal walking per day? How many miles or kilometers would that make? I then convert those mi/km to centimeters for the map, things like that. At least I’m not the one doing the epic drawing for it as well. It’s not that I couldn’t. Everything past the math is relatively simple. It’s the illustrator’s job, not mine. Hip, hip, hurrah for making someone else do the dirty work!
For those who also love fantasy books, what has been your favorite fantasy book map? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for reading!
Gabriel to Earth 
Perhaps you’ve already seen my blog post on this topic (maybe not?) Anyhow, a super-fit person (trained soldier/warrior) should be able to make upward of 40 miles on a perfect 12-14-hour day, assuming s/he is focused on getting from A to B on a nice road without a lot of difficult parts (this is the upper limit, I think). Through open forest I’d guess upward of 20 miles/day. Again, assuming fairly easy terrain and a super-fit person. If your character is going up steep hills or having to navigate around obstacles like ravines, deep creeks, dragon dens or whatever, you could drop to less than 10 miles. This, of course, discounts the need for stopping to get supplies or hunt for food or anything of that nature. I think an ideal target would 10-14 miles/day. This is about the pace you would expect on the Appalachian trail, covering quite a range of difficult to fairly comfortable terrain. I don’t have a favorite map from fantasy, but I prefer those that mimic real geography.
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That was actually incredibly helpful. Thanks for that!
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