Setting things up

Okay, it's always hard to start something new - be in a novel, a short story (ugh, couldn't write those if my life depended on it) or even a meager blog post.

First off, about me. I don't claim to be a writing genius - as a matter of fact, I'm quite the opposite. I make tons of mistakes. And, I've never been published. But I consider myself the kind of person who really reads. As in, not just flips through pages, but tries to find all the little hints and meanings a writer has in mind. Which, I guess, makes me a pretty decent critter (it's actually spelled criticizer, I think, but we people down at Critiquecircle.com call ourselves critters). And a decent reader.

In my blog, I will share thoughts on everything writing related - from ideas spawning  to character names, plots and such - my mistakes, other mistakes - what I love in a book and what I don't. I mostly rant...so feel free to ignore me. (I also like to make people laugh, but that's mostly beside the point)

What I want to shortly cover today... scenery - I literally suck at setting up the scene. I've done this in my all my novels - I never go into description overload - and even when I do... people seem to want more. That's just who I am. A minimalist when it comes to setting. And I'm not saying it's right. God knows I'm trying to break myself of this terrible habit.
But I have another problem - language barrier. I'm from Romania - not such a small country at the outskirts of central Europe - and while I have no trouble pointing out every little piece of furniture and glint in the wall in my native language, when it comes to writing it down in English I'm like... duh *drool*

As a writer, I've learned that you must draw a reader into your world - show him what you see. And I hope to get the hang of it at some point. I totally get readers who wonder - uh, were are they, actually? Or, better yet, how did they get there?
And it's not too hard, honestly. I got patted on the head and offered cookies for little things: (random example) She tripped over a sharp rock and grabbed on to a vein for support. -> Nothing special - just a rock and a limp piece of wood - but I agree with all my wonderful critters - it does paint the scene at least a bit!

So, as a n00b writer, it is my resolution to learn how to do scenery properly. Give the right details and not just make objects pop up (like they tend to do).
Also, I have a habit of describing a room before the people in it - and my critters are right! You never notice the room first!

Rambled enough for my first post. Hopefully, these things will get better. *runs off to find cookies*