Writing a book can be a great excuse to be nosy about things that interest you. My urban fantasy novel creates a hidden world of magic co-existing but invisible to contemporary life. One aspect, the aspect that touches Lyn (the heroine) most closely, is travel in the Between. Linked to the New York portal, she sees patterns in the Between’s synaesthetic environment. I’ve enjoyed describing the Between, but I’m aware the descriptions lack a real world frame. I suspect the amazing grows in strength if the reader can pin it to a real world base, no matter how much it spins and changes from there. I’m hoping that as I learn a bit more about data visualisation, its models and patterns of data and story telling will help to ground the bizarre, mind-stretching but conceivable experience of the Between.