Before I Sleep...

My mother sits in bed with me to calm me and rub my back. I relax, my head sinking into the soft pillow. My eyes close slowly.

Inside my head, I think of my love for my mother, for my father, and for my friends. A slight smile crosses my lips, though I don't know it. A great big red heart erupts from my chest like a balloon, carrying me up into the nonexistent air.

I land in front of a golden gate, shimmering in the imaginary sunlight. Using a key around my neck, I open the gate slowly to reveal a beautiful garden.

Walking along the path, I sit down to rest at the base of an apple tree. A book is there waiting for me. Picking it up to look at the cover this time, it says, The Giver by Lois Lowry. One of my favorites.

I open the first page to start at Chapter 1, and read for what seems for hours about a Community, a Ceremony, and a Receiver, until I get to the cliff-hanger ending.

Now my mind starts to float back to the real world. Reading an entire book in your mind does tend to do things like that to you. I tell myself I must stay in this alternative world to get myself to sleep.

I put the book down, get up, and close my eyes inside my head to will myself up into the air. I open my eyes to see myself skimming over the grass, flying.

I touch down just inside a forest of huge redwood trees, most ten feet in diameter. I walk to a door which has a wooden lock system that I switch to 4444 and enter. The door opens.

Inside the tiny room in the tree, it looks something like a motel room. There are two tiny beds and a little table with a lamp in between.

For the pleasure of being able to do anything, I conjure up a caramel and pretend to taste it. The wrapper disappears as soon as I finish, and I settle in one of the beds, sighing and sucking the candy. This was the way to get to sleep, I thought. But there was no need for thinking right now. Right now, it was time for blissful oblivion. I fell asleep without noticing.

All of that happened in a mere minute, reading, flying, eating, and sleeping. If I didn't do that every night, I would be kicking my mom off the bed before I even touched my head to the pillow.

*This is true. I do this every night, except when I'm really tired.*

This has the potential to be kind of cool. I think some parts could use some work; rather than saying you were thinking about your love for your family, show it. Say some things you're thankful they've done for you, etc... it'll make it more interesting. Also, describe this 'dream-world' place you go to more thoroughly to make the reader feel like they're right there beside you. Good job!


~ GenShawklan

Hello there, BlueRaspberry!

First of all, your username's cute.

I have to agree with 'Gen'. You just blandly tell us the plot without anything to describe and feel for us readers. I just noticed you're ten... are you really? This is good for a ten-year-old like you! You're good for your age. Show don't tell You have to let the readers feel, smell, touch, etc. through your words.

My mother sits in bed with me to calm me and rub my back. I relax, my head sinking into the soft pillow. My eyes close slowly.

Not a good starting line. It would be better if you portray or describe to us the feelings of the girl. Is the pillow smooth? hard? How does her mother's hand feel? Something like that.

A slight smile crosses my lips, though I don't know it. A great big red heart erupts from my chest like a balloon, carrying me up into the nonexistent air.

I quite like this line.

Overall, I like this but you really need to show to us her senses through your words. It would let us readers connect too with your MC.

Keep writing!

Peace out!

Okay, the others have commented on it too much like it's a piece of prose. I think what you're doing is kind of half slipping between a relatively dull anecdote and a tale. My first suggestion is to make this a lot more lively, spruce it up or add humour. You don't have to change the content necessarily, but it needs that hook, because non-fiction is a very hard nut to crack when gaining your potential audience.

Firstly, the structure needs some hard work. It's as if you're breaching on a couplet and then wondering off into a new lease of life with the next one. It doesn't matter how interesting your ideas are, the structure isn't complimenting it what-so-ever. My suggestion would be to paragraph it up, elaborate more, engage more. I want to know more about how you feel. If you're doing a tale... TELL THE TALE.

Also, you're too wordy at times such as this:

I put the book down, get up, and close my eyes inside my head to will myself up into the air.

It makes the entire sentence seem mumble jumble and confuses the reader. Work on that and your grammar, making sure you revise structure and choice of vocabulary to engage the reader further.

I hope this helps, you have some good foundations here.
Keep it up
Ben