Inneresting #127 - A Stack of Needles
"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." –Oscar Wilde
The Writer Emergency Pack card “Stack of Needles” suggests seeing what happens if you overwhelm your hero with too much of a good thing. Whether it’s problems caused by their own wild success, or grappling with envy of someone else’s good fortune, this week’s links are all about feeling overwhelmed.
Excessive success - Darko Lovric and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic look at how people’s character flaws can balloon when they achieve their goals. Ed Batista draws on Robert Redford’s The Candidate to discuss people who lose their way after an unexpected victory. Helena Fitzgerald compares the success of Twitter to the myth of Babel, a group of drunk girls in a bathroom, and the JFK assassination episode of Mad Men.
Doing the job too well - Jessica Lahy asks what price students pay when we push them toward good grades instead of fostering curiosity. Clay Jennings Desmond shares the story of his teenage prank that scared his hometown for decades.
Consider jealousy - Srinivas Rao examines the relationship between envy and the wealth of material to compare yourself to on social media. Maria Vucic breaks down the reality behind the fiction of the envy of Salieri in Amadeus.
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Join our #WriteSprint - Tuesday 11/29
We’re opening up another Substack chat thread next week! This time, it’s all about getting some writing done.
At 9 am Eastern time, we’ll open up a chat thread for anyone who wants to join us throughout the day to post about their write sprint, or to see if anyone else wants to join them at a specific time.
Find your 60 minutes to shut out all distractions and get some words on the page. Then, come tell the rest of us how it went for you!
To join in, you just need to be a subscriber to our newsletter and use the Substack iOS app. To learn more about how to get started, check out this post from Substack.
Join in to sprint on your own, find some accountability buddies, or offer cheer and support for the others in the thread. We hope to see you there!
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‘Tis the season to solve writing emergencies
Looking for something to give the writer in your life for the holidays? Consider the Writer Emergency Pack!
Each deck comes with 26 illustrated idea cards and 26 matching detail cards with helpful suggestions and tactics to try.
When a story gets stuck, Writer Emergency Pack has the tools get moving again. Fix plot holes. Spice up stock characters. Rethink themes.
Order now to get yours in time for the holidays!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link C.B. Daniels offers 200+ get-to-know-you questions to ask real life people, or your fictional characters.
Other Inneresting Things…
Alex Vuocolo looks at how sometimes maintenance may be a better answer to climate change than building new infrastructure.
Take a look at the original patent materials for Lego Bricks.
Viola Zhou reports on how some users of WeChat are required to submit written apologies to get their accounts reinstated.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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