PNI Practice
These posts are about fine points of PNI Practice: tips, ideas, advice, and so on.
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Cringe and joy, part one – anecdotal evidence
In this post I explore my misgivings about the phrase “it’s just anecdotal evidence” by exploring two problematical aspects of each word with respect to PNI. Read more
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Cringe and joy, part zero
This post is the first (well, the zeroth) in a new series of 32 blog posts recalling moments of cringe (when my work didn’t work as well as I hoped it would) and joy (when my work worked as well as I hoped it would, or better). Read more
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I Made a Story Journal
I like to watch YouTube videos in which people do things I like to do – woodworking, photography, crochet – so I can learn. Lately I’ve noticed an interesting trend. People keep giving their videos titles that are condensed stories, like “I Built a Cabin” or “That Rescue Turned Out Differently than I Expected” or… Read more
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Mail bag: How many stories?
Last week somebody asked me a question via email that I’ve already answered lots of times: How many stories should a PNI project collect? I was about to say “it’s on page whatever in my book,” like I usually do, but then I thought — why don’t I write something new this time, just to… Read more
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Questions for you, questions for me
Two posts in a row! Hooray! To be honest, I miss writing in the blog. It was fun. I’ll see if I can start doing it at least once a month again. However, I will need to hold myself back from writing those long essays that took up weeks of my time. Must not get… Read more
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A little bit of history repeating
This blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it in Chapter 19. Read more
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Mail bag: On transcribing storytelling
I’m deep in some intense (and fascinating) reading as I work on the last essays in the “Store Bought Stories” book. But the blog is hungry, so I went looking in my mail bag again. Here’s an anonymized (names and details changed) excerpt from some emails I sent recently to somebody who was working on… Read more
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Mail bag: Dimensional axes for sensemaking
I get emails pretty regularly from people looking for a bit of focused advice on some aspect of PNI work they are doing. I almost always respond (though usually not immediately). It occurred to me the other day that most of these responses would make good blog posts. So: this is the start of a… Read more
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Conference report, part five: NYSDRA and childhood trauma
This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about two conferences I attended this fall (NCDD and NYSDRA). Now I’ll finish the series with an account of some other meetings and conferences I attended and talk about what’s coming next. (Actually, this post was supposed to complete the series, but it turns out I will… Read more
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From the archives
I have some top secret projects going on right now, but I have nothing ready to show you just yet (mwahahaha). However, the other day I was poking around in some old files (can’t remember why), and I thought, gee, I wonder if some of my blog readers might like to see this old musty… Read more
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What makes a good story listener?
This blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it as the section called “Finding good story listeners” in Chapter 2, “More on Story Collection.” Read more
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Evaluations of story work
Most of this blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it in Chapter 10, “PNI Perceptions.” I didn’t use the last part of the post in the book, so I’ve left it here. Means of evaluation, forms of evidence Now, as I was writing up… Read more
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Practical ethics in story gathering
This blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it in Chapter 12, “Practical Ethics in PNI.” Read more
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What to expect when you’re expecting stories
After the detour into sensemaking represented by the last few posts, while still “growing” a few posts on complexity and all that business, I’m ready to get back to seriously finishing the rewrite of Working with Stories. (If you didn’t know this, reader, much of what’s up on this blog, under the Practice and Observations… Read more
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New ideas for emergent constructs
One of my favorite narrative exercises is what I call the derivation of emergent constructs (and some call archetype construction or two-stage emergence). This is a technique for producing representations of shared understandings about aspects of told stories. Note: I later decided to call these things story elements. In the emergent constructs exercise, people either… Read more
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Story collection habits
Once in a while my six-year-old walks up to me with a tool he has found around the house and says, “Mommy, how do you use this?” My response is always the same: “Give it to me and let me use it, and then I’ll tell you how to use it.” For a while he… Read more
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One interpretation or two?
This topic came up in our Swimming with Stories group call the other day. Swimming with Stories, if you didn’t know, is a Ning group whose primary purpose is to coordinate monthly phone calls where we trade ideas related to story listening. Anyone working in this area is welcome to join us. So anyway we… Read more