Expanding Vanovsk

This week I expanded a country.  I started working on my next country, Vanovask, and its short story.  As I began to work with the map, I realized that in my mind Vanovsk was a much larger kingdom than the little country I had marked out on my map those many years ago.  So I expanded it.  I don’t know why it tickled my fancy so much to jump in and erase borders and add islands.  I am after all creating an entire world in Idhua.  But I found it enormously liberating.  Perhaps it is because I have set myself some ambitious goals which require discipline to complete.  Sometimes I can feel hemmed in by deadlines of my own creation.  It is very nice therefore to remember the creativity inherent in the project and to suddenly decide to change the outlines.


Vanovsk is in the north-eastern most corner of Idhua.  I have been reading Russian Fairy and Folktales for inspiration, though I already have a good idea of my short story.  Years ago I had a dream in which I was a young woman who was captured by goblins to be the bride of their king.  I wrote it down, but never finished working it into a story.  Vanovsk seems the place to set it, so I have dusted it off and set about figuring out what happens down in the goblin kingdom.

Vanovsk before Expansion

Vanovsk after Expansion