Crazy for Cartography

I've been working on a new project lately--or rather, setting up to get working on putting the actual drafts together. I don't want to give too much away so I'm not going to say what it's about, exactly but I am willing to talk about something that has to do with the work in this compilation. Since a childhood friend of mine committed suicide last year by jumping off a building and since writing something about that situation (not the actual happening but how it feels to be in a situation like that) for Paperweight, I've become very, very, very obsessed with maps and the shapes of things and how setting, above all the elements of fiction really determines the things that happen in a narrative. 

 Pre-The Hobbit Keav & I went on a quick National Bookstore run and I got me a couple of maps. I originally wanted to get an atlas but the really hooj ones were too expensive and the pocket-sized ones cut up the terrain so it was difficult to see the shape of things. If anyone's looking to get me something for Christmas or my birthday, please let it be a big atlas! I've become really fascinated with the shapes and terrain of two places: our very own archipelago and the Indo-China peninsula (Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand). Over there, it is very dry and even if their land is not much bigger than ours it stretches out more than it stretches up and so everything seems wider. Here, everything feels cramped and narrow and like it's difficult to breathe--and yet it's our country that's kinda shaped like a lung. Anyway. I will stop bombarding you with weird info now. I suppose this counts as an "I'm Reading" entry because I am reading these maps.

I am obsessed with location. Here we are.