King Street in South Shields this very night. It looks a lot more magical in real life than these mobile phone pics can portray, but I thought I'd post them anyway. When I saw this display, I immediately thought of someone from my new story who would have loved to have been with me, staring up at the lights. My problem, if I can call it that, is conveying scenes such as these, and also conveying properly the wonder felt by someone at the very moment she beholds them. Not during, not after, but at the very moment she would first see these lights. This is where my fantasy training would come in: I know I would have to believe it first before I could describe it. I would have to see it for myself. Then I must become the person I am portraying. The reader has to believe, too, that he/she is there, looking up at the lights. Wonder must be universal, it must be contagious, passing from the writer's vision, through the eyes of the person in the story and into the mind's eye of the reader.

Difficult.

But you have to believe you can do it. More than that: you have to know you can do it. This doesn't mean that you will never do it if you do not know if you can. It simply means that you must learn how to do it.

Practice and study.

Practice doesn't always make perfect. Nobody ever achieves perfection - not even me, your resident raving loony perfectionist! But practice helps you achieve a state of mind that allows you to write in a more lucid, more eloquent, way.

Studying your favourite writers always helps. Ask yourself how they would have done it. If they have done something similar, ask yourself how you yourself would have done it instead - what would you have done differently.

Then try it. And keep trying it until you believe you have done it the best way you can. Your only worry after that will be that it is good enough to get you published. Lol! That's worry enough! But at least you will have given yourself a better chance.