Writing

The struggle with motivation and focus can be helped by habit. I'm a fan of two steps, which has worked well for me, although of course everybody's different.

1. Have some sort of master plan: an outline, a flowchart, a spreadsheet, a detailed synopsis, an index card for each scene, or whatever other organizational method works for you. Know the whole story before you begin writing; most novels that remain incomplete are that way because the writer started without knowing where he was going and how to get there. For a first novel, a plan is vital. Maybe you can write your second without one, but first you need to know you can finish a work that big.

2. Once your whole story is planned out, try the BIC method. That's your butt in chair for a set amount of time every day, minimum 30 minutes. (An hour or more is better. You want to write this novel or not?) During BIC time you have two options, and only two. You may write, or you may not write. You can't be online, have the TV on in the background, read or send texts or instant messages, play a computer game, do writing-related research, read what you've already written, adjust your outline, eat, smoke, or anything else. Write or don't, period. (Those who give themselves BIC of more than an hour can schedule a break if they must have one–but it doesn't count as part of the BIC time.) If others in the household might disturb you, you need to find a way to make that not happen, like doing it while they're at work or school, asleep, or take your BIC time at the library or a coffeehouse. Most days, you'll write. On the best days, you'll 'catch fire' and go beyond your assigned time, which is great. However, you can't amass credit. The next day, you still owe the same amount of BIC time as every other day.

Teaching yourself to write even when it doesn't come easily or you don't feel like it is part of the road to being a professional writer whose work other people pay to see.

For the FT journalists and freelancers out there, what actually IS a conflict of interest and why are reporters and professors of journalists so opposed to it? If you're passionate about anime clubs in schools or city-wide clean-up days, for example, and no one else in the newsroom is, should you write about one of those passions, or pass it off to someone else because of a so-called "bias"? What's a journalist to do?

"Shipping", a term used to describe fans' desire to see two or more people engage in a relationship romantically or platonically, is a phenomenon in all media. There are many types of "ships", such as canon, cargo, or crack, that fans desire and actively engage with in the community. This engagement includes fan fiction and fan art. The "shipping" phenomenon can lead to conflicts within a fandom. This is the case with "ship wars", where fans actively argue, harass, and belittle other fans in a fandom over preferences in "ships".
The question is why do people engage so passionately with the notion of "ships?" What is the psychological basis for "shipping?" Why do people fight over which fictional relationship is "OTP" (one true pairing) and which is not? Is "shipping" more prevalent in a certain demographic and why?

With Journalism, English, or other writing-based majors, students should be able to choose what classes they want to take, rather than forcing them to take general electives and studies that will not benefit their chosen career path. The student can choose which courses will best help them develop their sense of writing style and technique. Students will then be able to take classes about topics they are interested in writing about.

With all majors, there a certain core classes one must take, and then there are electives that they can take, but most of these electives need to be in their school– Journalism College, or College of Arts and Sciences. Instead of restricting their electives to their college of degree, students could take a course from any college that would best fit their chosen category of writing. For example, let's say a student is majoring in creative writing. That student might creatively write about cultural differences, or even hotel management experiences. That student would normally have to take electives that are other forms of creative writing, but with my idea, they could cover the aspects they want to creatively write about, and still receive credit for them.

Also, if a writing student wants to take another beneficial writing course, rather than a mandatory math class, they would be able to swap out for certain courses.

Discuss how Search Engine Optimization is changing the way we perceive processes of writing. SEO proposes new rhetorical devices and new writing strategies, which, in fact, turn us into entrepreneurs. The essay would discuss the importance of algorithms and the relevance of digital audiences.

Explain the process of writing videogame stories. How does it differ from movie screenwriting? How is action/gameplay incorporated into it? Can someone write a game plot and pitch it to a company? How does one get started in this field?

With the growth of the Super hero industry in television and cinema, from the DC's expanded universe to Marvel's Avengers to the upcoming Suicide Squad and the recent film Deadpool, it seems that many of the frontiers that were once so tantalizing are making their way into the mainstream. With so much public exposure to the diversity of what the world of super heroes and villains have to offer, one wonders where might the industry be heading next? Indeed, is there any room left in the public's psyche for new stories while the film and television industry are pulling so heavily from the huge pool of established canon? And with some of the more fringe elements of the comic book world, such as Deadpool and Suicide Squad making headline appearances, what would it take for a new work to be considered an "edgy" or "novel" idea?

The play in poetic form was popularized by Shakespeare, with works such as "Twelfth Night", "Hamlet", "Othello", et cetera. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries had a number of playwrights who wrote their plays in poetic form (Aside from Shakespeare, Moliere, and Racine, come to mine). However, only one such play was written in the Twentieth Century (T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral", and in the 1930s). Is there an explanation for such a decline in such authorship, and if so, what is it? Some factors that I would consider would be court culture (Versailles is an example), court funding for such work to have patronage, how absolute the ruler is, et cetera. If there are other factors that you would note, I am all ears.