Hi Zoey,
I don't get a lot of posting in around the forum...I tend to skim posts a few times a week, but life keeps me from chiming in very often. But I'm a sucker for talking shop about writing, so I'm going to see what I can come up with here.
As for description, there are varying schools of thought. Some writers (e.g. Stephen King...while I don't read his work, I've heard this around many forums) who advocate almost a complete lack of description. Leave it to the reader, these authors say.
I, personally, don't think this is a great policy when we're talking fantasy. A big element of the appeal of fantasy is that it draws the reader into a sense of wonder...it transports him to a time and place unlike his own. How can an author accomplish this without offering some description of what this other world is like? While I don't think you need to do a three page description of the terrain, as did Tolkien in much of LotR, I do think you need to call out the details that are pertinent to your point of view character.
Some folks like to establish the look of the entire environment, giving the reader what some would call the "establishing shot," to borrow a film term. Others like to pepper in the appearance of the setting as your character interacts with it, which is more the technique I like to employ. (Sometimes I do and establishing shot, but more times than not, readers start to skim if that gets too long. It's not just you.)
I recommend hunting down pictures that look a bit like what you are trying to describe. That will give you a jumping off point, and then you can embellish the real-world image with elements that make it particular to your story world. But if you feel you are weak in the department of description, don't try to pull it all out of your head. It's not something you can just decide to be better at. The tool of having a starting point will help a lot, and keep you from describing every door as a heavy wooden one, or every landscape as a set of rolling hills dotted with oak trees.
Hopefully that helps a little.
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