If you look back through my previous posts, you’ll likely notice a compulsive habit of mine: unless I really force myself not to, I “need” paragraphs to be the same length.
I don’t know when it started, but I know that it’s been years. I know that I’ve thought about it for years; been pained by it for years. I’m doing it right now, in fact—right this minute.
The problem is that some peculiar part of my brain thinks it must be beautiful for every paragraph to be the same length.
In truth, the opposite is true.
When you vary sentence and paragraph length, and have the shape of the words match their natural rhythm, that’s beautiful.
You can already start to see it here, I think.
I’m really forcing myself to break my compulsive habit. To make it secondary to the writing and to stop centering my compulsion. I tried to do it in another post, too, and to me it looks much more beautiful.
When there’s variation and rhythm and—almost but not actually—randomness in writing, it feels like jazz to me.
There’s beauty to it, I think.
It starts too feel alive; to dance across the page.
I’m pulled into it, and then through it.
I’m obviously forcing myself to do the opposite now. To force a rhythm that maybe doesn’t even make sense—but sometimes I have to over-index to really see the difference it makes.
It’s difficult to write about this. There’s a certain amount of shame attached to it. To compulsively doing something that is in conflict with my own taste and judgement (and then to tell people about it).
My hope, though, is that by admitting it to myself and talking about it openly, I can catch myself and try to avoid doing it.
The funny thing is, of course, that this isn’t the printed page. We’re here on the web! You could be on a different device or have a different viewport width! I have no idea how you’ll really see it!
Rational thought rarely affects compulsive behaviors.
I could simply try to stop thinking about it. To write how I write, and to accept it. I consider myself the primary reader of my writing though—and whilst my writer-self thinks equal paragraphs are beautiful, my reader-self does not. My reader-self wants jazz.
I love writing, but I really love reading. I want to read what I write and feel joy; to feel proud of what I’ve written.
Here’s post number one to help create that feeling.