First blog post….before I post it! Would you take a look?

[Sarah SimmonsParticipant]

Hey everyone,

I was hoping a few of you might be willing to take a look at my first blog post (below) before I launch? I’d love any critiques you would be willing to offer! My blog is going to be called Beautiful Between, and this post is sort of a mini-manifesto of its core message.

Thanks so much!
-Sarah

Together, we are living in the gaps.

We are living with the tension of unfulfilled dreams.

With the heartache of loss.

With the sickness of deferred hope.

Whether life is great or terrible, we all deal with that space between what is and what should be. Some of us are longing for relationships, for children, for jobs. Some, for healing, both physical and emotional. Some, to be heard and seen, or to finally get that project off the ground. Whatever it is, we’re all living in the gaps between our now and our ideal “not yet.”

And there are other gaps, ones that are bigger than our own lives, that create broken spaces in the world around us. This beautiful place, full of sunrises and mountaintops and crashing ocean waves, houses terror and heartache for multitudes.

This is not how life was supposed to be. Mothers shouldn’t see their children born without beating hearts and breathing lungs or watch them succumb to starvation and disease. Nations aren’t supposed to destroy their own people. Greed and selfishness shouldn’t motivate destruction. People were not formed to live in the searing pain of loneliness, wondering if they will ever be loved. Illness and sorrow and grief were not intended to be woven into the fabric of our everyday reality.

But they have been. And now we all live with the broken and imperfect elements of this world. We occupy these gaps and wonder if we can change anything in our own lives, let alone in the world at large. We may hope or believe for better, but today, we live between the now and the not yet.

This is where I live.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my life. I have an incredible, fulfilling job. I live in a city I love. I practice things that bring me joy. And, most importantly, I share life with community in a meaningful way. Many days, I wonder how I could ever be so blessed. But there are things that hurt, places I still long to go, experiences and dreams that elude me.

Some days, those “not yets” slip into the background and are barely remembered. I forget the brokenness of the world and even of myself. I face life with passion and excitement, plunging in headlong with a full heart.

Other days, those “not yets” scream for attention and singe the edges of my soul. They remind me of what I don’t have and what I can’t be right now. If I let them, they steal my joy and contentment and can fill me to the brim with jealousy, pain and despair.

But there is a better way, for me and for you.

I don’t want to waste my life in longing for what I don’t have. I can’t and won’t deny the difficulty and pain of this imperfect existence. I would never cheapen the ache of waiting or grief or failure by denying its importance in our lives. But I also know that there is joy and a glimmer of hope even in the darkest days.

This is why I’m starting this blog and what I want to share with you. I hope you find this a place of honesty and safety, of compassion and challenge. I hope that together, we can take our unfulfilled desires and dreams and make them meaningful. We can step into the gaps in our lives and the lives of others and bring a little bit more wholeness and joy to them.

We can make this a beautiful between.

[Kate JohnstonParticipant]

Hey Sarah!

You’re an excellent, engaging writer. I was immediately drawn in by the prose and the imagery. The language you use is provocative, heartfelt, and beautiful.

Without knowing anything more than what you explained in your intro, I see your audience as mainly female, over the age of 25, from all walks of life, but looking for a break, or some sort of place to find a support system for whatever is ailing them. This sentence is quite telling: “I also know that there is joy and a glimmer of hope even in the darkest days.”

I don’t know if that is the true intent of your blog — to offer a place of community? To hold out your hand (virtually, of course) and offer comfort and compassion?

There was one sentence that befuddled me:”…crashing ocean waves, houses terror
and heartache for multitudes.” The italicized part feels awkward to me.

My one note of concern is that the purpose of the post itself isn’t clear enough, early enough. I really wasn’t sure until more than midway through what you were getting at. While I like how you connect with your readers in the first half, by talking about your experiences/feelings, I think it’ll be more meaningful if your reader knows first why you’re connecting to her.

I think if you move your purpose up closer to the beginning, it’ll be a stronger post with clear intent.

Otherwise, I really like the sincerity and trustworthiness in your voice.

---

Kate
“Just Write It.”

• This reply was modified 2 days, 12 hours ago by  Kate Johnston.

• This reply was modified 2 days, 12 hours ago by  Kate Johnston.

[Win TreeseParticipant]

Hi, Sarah. I enjoyed reading your post. The images are very evocative, and your writing clearly comes from your heart.

I think Kate makes a good observation: making your purpose clear early will help bring your audience in. Have you drafted a “regular” post for the blog, beyond the introduction, that might help you articulate what readers should expect?

Another way to approach a first post is use a “regular” post, with the manifesto to come a few posts later, when some readers start to get a sense of what you have to say. A manifesto piece can also work well as part of the “About” for the blog.

In my first reading, I tripped over the metaphors a bit. The idea of “living in the gap” seemed to me to mean an empty space, like when one has given up one thing and hasn’t quite made it to another. There is, of course, a gap (sometimes a big one) between who we are now and who we want to be, but we are always at the “now”, so in that sense it doesn’t seem like we’re in a gap. But what I take from the rest of what you wrote is the idea that we are always in the gap between where we are going and where we have been, and we can choose (to some extent) what direction to go in. Like sailing on the ocean, we can leave the safety of land, and steer the ship, even as we are at the mercy of the waves and the winds. And some gaps we can only stare across, and dream, and accept that we will never be in that place.

I hope I’m getting it right; it sounds like you have some interesting thoughts and stories to share!

- Win

[Sarah SimmonsParticipant]

Wow…thank you both so much for the kind words and especially for the critiques! This is beyond helpful and so appreciated!

Kate, you pretty much hit my ideal reader on the head! The only thing I would add is that the “ailment” the reader might have could especially be a sense of loss or a deferred hope (i.e., being single or childless much longer than hoped, unfulfilled dreams, etc). I see what you mean about the awkwardness of that phrase and a need to state the purpose a bit earlier, and I’m certainly going to apply that feedback!

Win, I really haven’t drafted a clear “regular” post just yet. I’ve got a handful of half-written things floating around, but nothing that really fits the bill. I’ll need to work on that. I do think elements of this will be the groundwork for my About page, but it’s not quite there yet.

The feedback on the “gap” metaphor is great. I think you got the rough gist of what I wanted to communicate, but I need to be a bit clearer. My idea is more that there is often a painful gap between what we have and what we want (for example, a couple that has decided they want to try and have kids, but is unable to get pregnant for a long period of time). It’s the disappointment of living without dearly longed-for hopes. I also really loved how you put it, that we get to choose how to steer our ships between where we were and where we’re going.

Once again, thank you both for the generosity of your compliments and the time you took to critique this piece. I am so humbled and grateful!

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