I should be studying for my finite automata exam. Really, I should. However, I find myself procrastinating. Which is funny, because usually I use my studying and classwork as a way to procrastinate from my writing. Now, I’m procrastinating from the very thing that allows me to procrastinate.

Why am I procrastinating from my writing? Well, because when I look at the page, I sigh and my shoulders slump, rather than smile and put my eager fingers to the keyboard. Like I said before, I know where I want to go next. What I don’t know, what the characters refuse to tell me, is what path to take in order to get there. And no, I am not schizophrenic, though sometimes my mother worries I might be when I start talking about my characters as if they were alive.

The interesting thing about this (to me, at least) is that I have to write. I need to write. Not writing causes actual changes in personality. Feel free to picture a Jekyll/Hyde situation, but only because it’s amusing, not because it’s true. I do become a little more cranky, but the main thing is, I feel a lot more stress when I don’t write. Being a person generally inclined towards stress (and here my friends laugh and shake their heads at me because they know that’s an understatement), having a writing outlet has become an integral part of my personality, especially if I want to maintain general content (the adjective, not the noun).

I’ve heard from multiple people that this…need rather than want to write is what makes me a “serious” writer. I heard it earlier today, actually. Does it make me a serious writer? Perhaps so. I can’t be sure, I only know my experience with writing. I do know that there is a direct correlation between how stressed I am, and how long ago I last wrote something “creative.” Or sometimes since the last time I wrote anything, period.

So, I suppose my main hope is that by writing this entry, I will have gotten the procrastination blues out of me. That I will turn from my monitor excited to study finite automata, context-free grammars, and regular languages.

Or…at least helped you all to procrastinate a little with me.

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