Too many people tell me that they cannot write. They've forgotten, or never learned, what makes a story interesting. Remember sitting on the floor while someone read a story? Did you feel like you were part of it? Did you know there was another magical world somewhere?
Writing to make it sound real is a muscle everyone can develop. You have to learn how to see. Not just look at something, but really see it. It's like Sherlock Holmes when he said, "...you see, but do not observe."
Pick an object. Let's try a leaf. Finger it, roll it around, blow on it, study it. How do the veins move across it? What color green is it? Or is it red, yellow, and orange? Is it soft? Is it round or sharply pointed? Once you know what it looks like, try finding something the parts remind you of. Then you can write about it.
My freewrite: Leaves are such simple things, yet not. The veins trace a map over the surface, like some mindless road from an ancient land, the pattern and logic was lost long ago. The curl at its arrow tip wraps just around my little finger, a green cape with saw-toothed edges. Just where it rolls across the top of my finger, the dark green glares a white line. I let it drop, twirling back and forth on the breeze. It hits the sidewalk like the soft tap of a finger on glass, then skitters across the sidewalk before the breeze until the curl holds a long blade of glass. It hangs there, shaking, rasping against the ground, till the vengeful air whips it up and away.
Chalice
