I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic this week, celebrating the first birthday of my second collection Sky Light Rain, and remembering writing the tales in my first collection Remember Me To The Bees. The first story in that first collection is ‘Never Seen The Sea’, and is, as the title suggests, about a person’s first ever sighting of the sea.

It was a fun challenge to imagine never having seen something most of us take for granted. My parents took me to the seashore as a baby, so it has always been part of my landscape and understanding of the world.

I set you the challenge of writing a short story about someone experiencing something ordinary for the first time and finding it extraordinary. Perhaps its their first tree (how astonishingly tall!), thunderstorm (terrifying!), or music.

Whatever it is, write it from the point of view of the person seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing, smelling and tasting this first-in-their-lifetime event. Describe it using all the senses and try to capture the wonder for your readers to share.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.