i usually make little sketches of maps before making them, because it helps me alot with visualization and gives a reference to make the map from (i cant pay attention to things for more than a few minutes, and i quickly forget things because of a bad short term memory)
usually my first sketch is really rough, and i keep sketching it over and over and over until i refine it and looking in staredit to see what things are possible to do and all that.
if you dont know what im talking about, i created sketches in paint that should help you understand:
this one ive been thinking about since the release of ride of valkyries and forte, and the original concept was something that would mix the concepts behind the original ride of valkyries and the original forte (when they still had the rusty pits). its gone through a lot of changes since its conception.
the original version of this map i came up with around the same time i made the sketch for the above map, but a little after. i was drawing it once and took out the entire middle i had, and thought what if i used the current mains as cliffs and used the empty middle space as mains. one thing led to another and i had this drawn up. this version was drawn today, so theres alot of empty space that hopefully will be filled once i get some ideas