[stylist] Nonfiction, As I Lay Me Down to Sleep, no language, no sexual content

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Chris,

Thanks. I actually had about four ideas floating around in my head, but
this one was a little more concrete. For some reason, the Lay Me Down to
Sleep prayer led me down a trail, and I wanted to explore it. I have no
clue why it came to mind; I often have random ideas, or random things
help me create ideas, and I am clueless as to why certain thoughts,
sometimes just a word or phrase, will inspire my inspiration! LOL

Ross said the same thing about it reading like a poem- I wish. I can do
the lyrical essay, but actual poetry, good poetry, is beyond my skills.
The inspiration is a couple of things, I'm sure you know, but
spirituality is a topic I like to explore. Sometimes the poetic language
allows me to express things that are difficult, or when I can't find the
right words, using imagery and metaphor helps. I know this poetic style
is not for everyone, but I seem to have some of the best responses to my
work that follows this style. It's funny because I'm by no stretch of
the imagination a poet, hats off to those who are, but I seem to do well
when writing with this poetic, or lyrical, stream-of-conscienceness
style.

It's funny because I had a couple of ideas come to mind after showering
the other night; Ideas like to come to me at the oddest times, and I
proceeded to write them down, one being incorporating Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper into a piece. When I was working on this,
I thought it could be a possible jumping off place. Gilman's short story
could frame it, being a catalyst to weave in-and-out of a piece. I also
posted this on Facebook, and my mom said it reminded her of Gilman's
story. I thought that was interesting that she had a similar thought.
Weird. Not sure what this says about me, or my mom and me! LOL

Yes, I had that itch like I just had to get the stuff in my head out
instead of waiting to work ideas out. I've never been big with outlines
for my writing, though I do use them for bigger pieces, which usually
end up changing anyway, but I have this organic style of writing where I
just sit and let it happen. It sounds so corny, but I honestly feel that
my stories, fiction and nonfiction, have a mind of their own. I'm just
the device recording them. I like to think about things before writing
them down too. Let stuff play in my head for a bit. Usually, my ideas
play like a movie in my head, scene-by-scene.

Thanks for the comments. Just thought it was about time someone posted a
writing sample. I've tried weekly exercises, but they never seem very
popular.

If I expand this, I'll keep the list updated.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog for Live Well Nebraska.com at
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 08:46:11 -0400
From: "Chris Kuell" <ckuell at comcast.net>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Nonfiction, As I Lay Me Down to Sleep, no
	language,	no sex, sorry ha-ha!
Message-ID: <9846B4D9460A4E9491E6D7097D65C91E at ChrisPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

Hey Bridgit,

I enjoyed this--thanks for sharing. And I hope that eventually you got
some 
sleep! I suppose you can take that as the sign that you've made it to
the 
big leagues when the muse keeps you awake and forces you out of bed and
to 
the keyboard.

You didn't ask for a critique, but some of the things I liked about this

piece were your reference to the rabbit hole, which ties in nicely with
the 
dreaming later on.
they breathe into the ebony silence, chiseling solid darkness  is a
really 
nice line. I can't say why, but I love 'ebony silence'.
This piece strikes me almost as a longish prose poem. I've read it
through 
twice, and it seems that the 'you' in the piece is God, whom at first is

comforting, but suddenly isn't. The sound obviously triggers a bad
memory, a 
time when you felt abandoned by God, then it's as if the fears and
magical 
feelings dissipate and you are once again in bed with your very real 
husband.


Again, thanks for sharing.

chris