The corner store, the neighbor’s barking dog, the way your block smells in July. Put that in the work.

Specific places carry more than general ones because detail is what makes a reader believe you were there. The things you overlook as ordinary are ordinary only to you, and to anyone else they are the texture that turns a description into a place. Your particular block is material nobody else has access to.

Write down five details of where you live that you would never think to mention. The sound at a particular hour, the smell in a particular month, what the light does. Put one of them into the next thing you make and see how much it holds up.