Maureen Stanton's "Water" began as notes scribbled on scraps of paper and filed in a folder. She started out recording the people she met and her feelings about water while swimming regularly for several years at her local YWCA pool. Stanton says she spent years making notes before she realized a larger, more polished piece of writing was developing out of the scribbles.

"At some point there seemed to be a critical mass, or a momentum, a physical and spiritual pull that moved me to begin to write this piece," Stanton says.

"Because it started out as individual blocks-an amalgam of observations, thoughts, feelings and experiences-I'm happy they fit together and meshed into a whole instead of appearing to be patched together, which was my fear."

Stanton, who also writes fiction, poetry and conventional journalism, was not sure whether "Water" would be fiction or nonfiction. In the beginning, she had no plan. As she began to shape her notes, however, she realized her goal was "to communicate the feeling I get from being underwater and how that relates to life above water."

She adds, "I think not having a goal may have helped this piece succeed in its candor, allowed the story to move in the direction it wanted to."

Finally, she decided the piece was moving toward creative nonfiction when she realized she was pushing the limits of fiction, poetry and conventional journalism.

"Creative nonfiction allows greater freedom of expression" than these other genres, Stanton says, "and I am more willing to take risks and let the writing flow. In this piece, I could tell, describe, show my emotions, embellish characters, take stylistic risks, be poetic, and push the boundaries far beyond any other context for writing."