Draw a Map for Me

Am I the only almost-novelist who is just now figuring this out? I drew a map of my fictional setting the other day. It was a revelation. An inspiration. A veritable well-spring of new ideas.

Until I set to diagramming the digs of my sleuth and her fellow citizens, I had ignored in my book concrete (pun intended) illustrations of what gives a small southern town its flavor--bits of local color that beg to be included. There are the monuments of racial strife: the "Academy," or the private school built to "protect" the town's white students from forced desegregation, and the Confederate soldier statue, who faces eternally South. There is the rich religious history: the AME Zion Church as well as the First Presbyterian. Change is inevitable, we know: What will become of the shuttered main street department store or the struggling independent hardware store? New apartments, a bowling alley, a Hardees or Popeye's, and a BP station squeeze into strange spots. A strip joint beckons from the outskirts, across from the Chinese buffet and the Guatemalan grocery.

Can you tell I enjoyed this exercise in world-building? I can't wait to get back to it. First though, two naps are now done, and with them two dirty diapers to be changed. Then snacks. Don't forget the two barking dogs due their dinners. A little playtime and laundry, followed by dinner preparation. But relief is in sight. My husband will be home early tonight (yes, 6:30 is early) for our once-a-week trade-off, when he lets me "do my own thing" for several hours. My atlas awaits...