Dancing about Architecture
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
We seem to be on track for Christmas - only more house cleaning and food shopping to do. I woke up this morning with the excellent news that Arsenal beat Hull 3-0 and promptly demanded a celebratory sleep-in. Well more to the point I was up for too much in the middle of the night and needed a sleep-in, but whatever. I haven’t had one in a very very long time and Jemima was bizarrely compliant, allowing me to sleep for most of the morning. Raeli was less compliant, of course.
I’m trying to finish up the last couple of work-ish things before I say to hell with it and just allow myself to be on holiday. I wrote a story for girliejones’s anthology of suburban fantasy, Sprawl, but I gave it to my honey to read and he agrees it needs another act. Damn it. Might have to work late tonight. At least another act means I don’t have to beg and plead for an exception to be made for her wordcount rules…
I sent the finished Creature Court maps off to the publisher today - I know it’s pointless because the chances of them still being in the office between now and January are next to nothing, but they are finished and that is the important thing. I really want to post some of the drafts and talk about the process that went into producing them - a fascinating collaboration with my mother, one of the most professional and efficient artists that I have ever met - but it feels a bit squicky to do that when a) the publisher hasn’t approved them yet and b) Mum might not actually like her early drafts being put on display. So if I do that it will be much closer to the publication date and with her permission.
Which means of course that anything I say about it will be without illustration and thus not nearly as interesting as it could be. Still, I wanted to state for the record that despite some of the stress and drama of our first couple of map meetings the process as a whole was incredibly cool.
We have ended up with three maps. My city, Aufleur, which is roughly based on a version of Rome which exists only in my head. The Arches, a ruined underground city which exists beneath it (both maps are designed so you can put one over the other and certain points will match up). The world map, envisaged as a slightly twisted version of our own world, which looks so cool I am now seriously thinking I might have to visit some of the other countries. In books that are not this one. Book 3 will be crowded enough as it is!
My mum, who has never drawn a map in her life, and whose regular illustrative art form is usually done in the round (see pic of one of her Deepings Dolls) took to the medium with delight, poring over books of maps and doing extensive research on underground spaces and caving manuals. For a while there she was coming back to me with new drafts a couple of times a week - and all without having actually read the books! So I had to explain every time why so many of her very sensible questions/suggestions were completely impossible.
I do hope that once the books are published, she’ll go “ohhhh that’s why” instead of rolling her eyes and muttering at me.
In any case, the maps are beautiful. Even the scratchy, imperfect original pencil drafts were beautiful. And someday I will share them instead of just babbling about them, honestly!