Movies and Mapping

Lately I've been watching all the movies I recently bought. And the one thing I hate the most is when they make a really good movie, and then ruin the story with a horrible sequel. Or multiple sequels. I'm currently watching Joy Ride. Which I think is very good. I recently watched Joy Ride 2. And it was so bad. Like they destroyed the whole "Rusty Nail" character. They showed more of who he was, and to me that ruined all the suspense and mystery that made who he was. He was a creepy voice over the CB and then you got to watch him do bad stuff to people. Basically it became a gore fest. And that's not a good movie.

Anyways I digress...

The last few nights I've been redrawing the maps for my book. Well I sorta mashed together all three maps that I had into one big one. (see below) I have no intention of writing anymore of the story until I know the land better than the inhabitants do. I want a fully fleshed out land. Something that will get me excited and curious as to who lives there, and what stories are waiting to be told. I know it still needs loads of work, but it will come in time.

I also read through everything that I've written and it definitely needs to be reworked. On a large scale. And as I'm starting fresh on the map I see this as a perfect opportunity to rework the story I have so far.

This is the entire map. It's made up of four large sheets of paper. So far all I have on this one is the waters colored in. But this one:

This is the entire map on one sheet of paper. (which is 1/4 the big version! yay!) Any ways so far I place mountains and some lakes and forests and rivers. I like how it is now. I just need to figure out a scale. Place towns and castles and the like. Maybe decide if I want to add anymore natural landmarks. Then I have to copy it all to the big map and then hang it up. Then I have to figure out all the details of the land. Inhabitants, government, country boundries, etc, etc. THEN I can start to write :)