Just sketched my first drawing on a tablet PC with my finger. Not easy (especially in a bus).

Had to be done, though because the scene I’m writing is set in a small town and has a lot of different people moving around (and shooting at each other).

First I found a neat little town in the USA which fit the description of this particular town on my planet, looked at it on Google Maps and suddenly had the whole layout in my head.

Next it was on to the sketch app.

Some say I spend too much time on this level of detail and yet I don’t know of any other way to get my details right. I mean if I didn’t make a drawing, I could have people spilling out of an alley beside the law court, then running across the road to the alley beside the law courts. Seriously, this happens (it’s why you’ll never read my first draft…I hope).

Some may say “fix it in the revisions”, but I’m of the opinion that I’m going to have enough to fix in the revisions without not knowing the layout of my cities and towns!

— IEK