The Midnight Disease

by Flaherty, Alice W.

• ISBN13: 9780618485413
• ISBN10: 0618485414
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-18
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it. She draws on intriguing examples from medical case studies and from the lives of writers, from Franz Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Flaherty, who herself has grappled with episodes of compulsive writing and block, also offers a compelling personal account of her own experiences with these conditions.

Author Biography

A. W. Flaherty is a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who also teaches at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain. A. W. lives with her husband and twin daughters near Boston.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(16)
Hypergraphia: The Incurable Disease of Writing	17	(32)
Literary Creativity and Drive	49	(30)
Writer's Block as State of Mind	79	(29)
Writer's Block as Brain State	108	(41)
How We Write: The Cortex	149	(34)
Why We Write: The Limbic System	183	(41)
Metaphor, the Inner Voice, and the Muse	224	(43)
References	267	(17)
Illustration Credits	284	(1)
Index	285