I seem to be needing maps for several of my latest adventures in writing. Actually, I’ve always create hand-drawn maps as part of my world-building, but they’ve been for my reference only. As far as amateur maps go, some turn out rather nicely, carefully crafted, while others are horribly scribbled.

Now I have a few books in the works where I think the maps may be of interest and helpful to the readers. The stories take place in sweeping landscapes – islands in the case of Dragon Soul and a whole continent for Sunwielder. The hand-drawn artwork isn’t going to cut it.

So I invested in a map-mapping program, designed for games, but suitable for books. Don’t ask me how that works quite yet, as I haven’t moved that far into the process. However, I did make a map!

I went with Profantasy, available at a decent price and with good quality. I got scary warnings about downloading the user’s guide and haven’t taken that step, but there’s an awesome youtube tutorial as part of the “help” function. I watched the tutorial, paused, drew a coastline, watched another segment, inserted mountains, watched… you get the idea. In about five hours, my first attempt at a map was done! Supposedly this is a very basic map, but not too shabby.

The map is for Sunwielder.