I don't know how any writer can get away without using maps... Unless, I suppose, if they always set their stories in their own backyard, or their characters never go anywhere. But if they do go somewhere you need to know that they went to the right place, and that it took the right amount of time. I can still remember my sister reading one entire series of science fiction stories, pulling out a pencil and paper to do some calculations, and then announcing that on *this* world cities migrated between books. It was odd how none of the character's seemed to notice the worlds' morphing geography.

I started out using a pen and pencil, and drawing my maps on graph paper ... maps to determine geographical locations...

...Maps to figure out what the weather is like...

...maps to trace the paths of history.

I eventually moved on to a digital painting program to do my maps, but they were in a proprietary format, and when I lost the program that could read them I had to start all over again. This time I'm trying for 3D.