Where Have All My Red Dots Gone?

Those of you who drop by here frequently might have occasionally glanced at the sidebar and noticed the ClustrMap which shows the whereabouts of people who drop in here. Or if not the people themselves, at least where their IP address is coming from.

I love seeing those little red dots turn up. Between ClustrMaps and Neoworx I can get a feel for the global scope of my readers and casual visitors. And it's always a thrill to see new dots or discover the flag of a new country.

Neoworx's flags turn up right when the visitor appears. ClustrMaps redraws its maps every time there is a 10% increase in the number of visitors, so there is delayed gratification as the numbers build. Below is last year's map. We've started over on the sidebar.

My 88th country was Albania. Someone from Tirana (waving to Tirana!) turned up last week. And I was eagerly awaiting my red dot on Albania.

But -- alas! -- ClustrMaps did their yearly archive of my map yesterday. And now I have just a few dots again. No dot in Albania. So I hope whoever it was in Albania comes back. And I hope lots more people from lots more countries visit. It's always a thrill.

I know Kate Walker's flag list is well over 100 now -- creeping up toward 150 when last I looked. I have 12 more to go to reach 100. Hmm.

Could we have a concerted effort here, do you think? Write to your friends in Burkina Faso and Chad and Bolivia and Norfolk Island and tell them to drop by. Not to mention all the places that already have flags but whose dots have been archived!

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Tomorrow is the day I'm giving away a signed copy of The Mephisto Club by the brilliant talented personable Tess Gerritsen, who is -- it goes without saying -- a terrific writer who scares me to death in her books.

Maybe if you're into the less terrifying stuff, you won't want to read Tess. But if you have friends who love that 'edge of your seat' 'what's going to happen next' and 'oh God, it's worse than I thought' then they really need to drop by and comment to get in the drawing.

Or better yet, just tell them to go out and buy Tess's books!

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Post script: 89! I just got my 89th flag -- from Colombia!

Ask and you shall receive, I guess. Anyway, welcome, Columbia, whoever you are. So glad you stopped by.

And to add to the international flavor of the day, the postman just brought books -- The Santorini Bride in its Polish edition and a trade-sized paperback of The Boss's Wife For A Week in Dutch (I think. Well, it's almost German but not quite. But I can't see a place of publication. Must go examine it more closely).

In the meantime, who will be country #90?

Making Maps

I've always been fascinated by maps. Those of you who were here in May 2006 may remember my map cabinet adventure. That was exciting enough -- getting a piece of gorgeous old oak furniture to house them.

But it's the maps themselves that entrance me. I look at old maps and wonder at the world as it looked to people then. I look at places on maps that are unfamiliar to me, and I speculate what it would be like to live there. I read maps the way some people read old familiar books over and over. I like to see where I'm going, where I am, where I've been in relation to everything else.

And, of course, maps are great in helping to figure out who all the people of the same name are who live in the same general vicinity but who don't happen to be one person with seven different personalities.

That's in fact what I've been doing the last few days -- playing with maps. And I am relishing my affair with Google Earth. I've discovered, with the help of a very patient researcher into the same area of Cornwall that I'm interested in, that Google Earth can be used to make reproduction maps that show exactly who was living where.

Oh joy! Oh amazement! Oh, I am so happy I could spend all day with Google Earth.

Unfortunately if I want to pay my bills, I can't spend all day every day with Google Earth. But it's tempting. Next week it will be WORK. But for the moment, I'm enjoying a brief fling with Google Earth.

It wasn't all dead relatives, I assure you. I made a map of my fictional world while I was at it -- locating all my books on it. It was fun, though I admit to a couple of instances when I had to pause and think, where did that book take place? I have, after all, written 60 of them now.

We'll have to celebrate that later this year when PJ and Ally come out. In the meantime we'll just celebrate maps. The Anne's World map is supposed to be going up on the page of my website. There's even a place for it on the sidebar just waiting for me to figure out what the heck I'm doing. And I will once I get my Google Earth for Dummies book.

In the meantime, bear with me.

I promise I won't go on and on about Google Earth for Dummies -- at least not the way I did about Tharp's The Creative Habit. That was a stunning book. I have no idea about GEFD, but I'm going to learn from it. And in the meantime, Google Earth is feeding my maps obsession in a way I hadn't imagined.

I'm loving every minute of it.

To contest winner, Rania: your prize box of books has gone out in the mail today. I hope it will arrive sometime next week. Let me know when it does, please! Thanks.