Posts on visualization

I went to Kathleen Duey's website this morning, desperately hoping for news of the next volume in her A Resurrection of Magic sequence. Alas: none. According to her interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, Book Two is coming out sometime in 2008. Anyone know more?

Anyway, my real reason for posting: Kathleen Duey posts a lot of photographs to her blog of places and items she visualizes when she's working on her book. An elaborate dome in an Abu Dhabi hotel lobby becomes the ceiling of the king's library in Limori; these keys become part of the story as well. Duey apparently uses this technique a lot when "world building" in her fantasy novels.

I can usually get a pretty good picture of people and places when I'm writing realistic fiction, because I can draw on my own experiences. (e.g., I've seen quite a few public schools in my life.) But whenever I've tried to write speculative fiction, too many details are vague because I haven't been able to fully visualize the world. Maybe I can persuade my father to part with some of his 50 million National Geographic magazines and mine them for ideas!