Mum's the word

Resolved: The next post you see on this blog will announce the release of the third edition of my book Working with Stories.

I have just six or seven sections left to write, then it's cleanup and preparation for print publishing. It may take a month, it may take longer. But I have promised myself that everything left to put in the book will be in the book only. Writing things here first, and thinking what to feed the blog, takes too much scarce time away from getting the book done. If I slip up and write a blog post, you are hereby authorized - no, entreated - to chastise me severely. Or, let's say if I write one longer than your hand you may chastise me severely. What if I see an interesting article? Come on.

To those who are encountering this blog for the first time during this its quiescent period, you may be interested in a list of the most popular posts here. (This list comes to you through the astounding power of the all-seeing eye known as Google Analytics.)

1. Complexity/chaos stories: Butterflies, keystones and climbers
2. The confluence post and those that followed from it (most popular among these were better confluence diagrams, another sibling and whose truths)
3. Why narrative inquiry?
4. Stories of definition
5. Groupthink, groupfence, groupsense
6. Steal these ideas
7. The natural storytelling series (sweetness of disgrace, hierarchy and meshwork, authorities of story, solutions)
8. E-books, narrative context and the future of reading
9. Identity and harmony in meshwork and hierarchy
10. WEIRD research on WEIRD people

A list of my favorite posts? Why thanks for asking.

First, I like the "eight observations" posts I started the blog with, so I'll set them out here in order:

1. stories compact knowledge; 
2. stories have stories; 
3. the life cycle of stories (and then some bits left over from 1, 2, and 3);
4. ways you can interact with stories - telling, making, listening (its dangers and opportunities), and herding;
5. truth is more useful than fiction;
6. varied perceptions of stories and story work;
7. whether people tell stories, and whether they think they tell stories; and finally,
8. computers and stories.

Obviously I like the things I put in the "useful things" pages, because, that's why I put them there. As to other posts, I think my readers have done a pretty good job of sorting out the best ones. I'll let them speak for me.

Thanks for reading, everybody, and hang on for that book rewrite. General encouragement and/or blame may be submitted via the comment system or email.

Watch "Reclaiming the Power of Personal Narrative"

I just came across this TEDx talk on Reclaiming the Power of Personal Narrative by Robert Tercek. I don't usually recommend things, but if you have connected to any of what I have written here about the decline of natural storytelling (and what I'm trying to do about it), watch this talk. It made my heart pound like a hammer, it was so like what I have been saying. The resonance is encouraging.