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Where are we going? 

Last night I attended a conversation between one of my journalistic heroes, William T. Vollmann (a novelist/journalist who mixes vivid imagery with emotional close-ups of human suffering) and photographer Richard Drew (the photographer of the famous "falling man" picture from 9-11.

The event was hosted by the Whitney Museum, and they played a barrage of intense images on a movie screen during the discussion--a grim history of American photography. Afterwards, Vollmann asked Ed Champion, Marydell, Levi Asher, and I what we thought young, web-based journalists should do next.

I was a little speechless myself, but now I would say this--we should create web video content to go along with what we write.

Vollmann himself has always shot photographs to mix with his written stories, and those pictures haunt his books. For the next generation of Vollmann-inspired journalists, we must consider web video. We can electrify any online text with video, and anybody can shoot and edit the whole thing with their laptop. 

If you live in the Midwest, there's a great lecture series coming up about video storytelling coming up in Chicago. Video journalism educator Robb Montgomery has a simple goal: "Writers, editors, artists and designers will learn how to identify and develop the visual components of stories so people will actually read them in print, as well as how to take stories to new levels online."

If you don't live in the Midwest, check out the helpful Visual Editors website (which is run by Montgomery as well). It's packed with information and contacts to build your web video toolkit. 

Have you ever clicked on the iMovie (or other free film-editing program) icon on your computer? Most writers haven't, but they should.

The day is coming when the word "professional writer" will include a grocery list of abilities, including blog software abilities, digital camera technique, and video editing. You think I'm joking, but I can think of a couple journalists off the top of my head that have turned those abilities into crazy cool careers.

I've dabbled in the editing myself, but I'm always looking for more guidance. Cobbling together a visual story is a mysterious and difficult art for us text-based dummies like me.

Luckily, the New Videographer blog published A List of Key Video Storytelling Textbooks that can help us use these tools better. Continue reading...

What have we done to reality?

In a publishing market flooded with memoirs, our relationship with fiction and non-fiction is dissolving. I say open the floodgates and let our narrators be swamped with our news, ideas, and personality quirks.

If you are thinking about writing a memoir, I have three dispatches from the front lines of the Battle for Reality--thoughts to consider as you shape your own story.

1- Writing too close to reality can be dangerous. Literary Saloon reports on a French writer attacked by farmers for the way he portrayed their village in a novel. The Saloon adds this observation to the original article: "Physical attacks are, of course, beyond the pale, but obviously this continues to be an author's dream: the publicity seems to be doing wonders for Jourde's book -- get your own copy at Amazon.fr, where its ranking was 23 last we checked."

2- The bloggers, critics, and readers who demand objective truth from writers writing about real life may be hurting literature. Ed Champion explores two faux memoirs in this essay, asking why contemporary readers insist that memoirs be held to the same standard as journalism--outlining a writing debate that our kids will study in college some day.

3- No matter where you stand on the Battle for Reality, don't sign a movie contract as a fake author. GalleyCat discusses here. And, as a bonus, Danielle Trussoni has some memoir writing tips here. What do you think? How should we write about reality?

Established writers rarely mention the hard times they faced early in their careers. We don't think of William Faulkner as a night watchman or T.S. Eliot as a banker--but both writers had those jobs.The hardest part about writing is believing that you are a novelist/poet/journalist even though you haven't been published yet.

Today we have a very special guest, Woody Wilson--the man who wrote the Rex Morgan M.D. comic strip story you see above.

For more than 15 years, Wilson written the iconic comic strips, Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker, but he struggled to become a newspaper comic strip writer--just as hard as any starving artist.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

Jason Boog: 

How did you become involved writing comic strip scripts?  

Woody Wilson: 
In 1978, I met the late Jim Andrews, editor and founder of Universal Press Syndicate. I was living in San Francisco and had been toying with the idea of writing a comic strip.