I hired an editor to critique my science fiction manuscript. In his report, he suggested I have a map made since it was challenging to keep track of all the locations. I like maps, so that suggestion excited me.

At Fiverr.com I found quite a few fantasy map makers. I chose exoniensis. I wrote up a list of locations with a brief description for him, he created this image. The price was US$68 (with a modest tip) and I got this color version, a black and white version, and various other versions. I am very happy with it.

The town called ‘Landing’ is the location of the one and only human settlement where the humans first landed on the planet. In the story, Robert travels to every city to sell his educational materials to the planet’s natives at the colleges. However, in six of the cities, Robert’s adventures are not detailed and are only mentioned in passing. The pink Wilderness of No Return presents most of the adventure and suspense.

After the editor’s critique, I made several changes to the story and sent it back for manuscript editing. I expect the results on Tuesday.

After that, I plan to hire people to create short stories and science essays for the book’s appendix. With past books I have written, I enjoyed having the backstories of various of my minor characters in the book in the appendix. I already hired one person to write a story about the ancient ancestors of the natives as hinted about at The National Archives on the map.

This time, seeing how I tried to keep the story scientifically plausible, I want to hire someone to write a science essay on the future of space travel. Specifically, I want it to include how plausible or not so plausible various aspects of my story is as far as how space travel is portrayed in it.

Thanks for reading.