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OverviewWhy is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase, while others, hunched over a notepad or keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain (Houghton Mifflin, January), neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the hows and whys of writing, revealing the science behind hypergraphia -- the overwhelming urge to write -- and its dreaded opposite, writer's block. The result is an innovative contribution to our understanding of creative drive, one that throws new light on the work of some of our greatest writers. A neurologist whose work puts her at the forefront of brain science, Flaherty herself suffered from hypergraphia after the loss of her prematurely born twins. Her unique perspective as both doctor and patient helps her make important connections between pain and the drive to communicate and between mood disorders and the creative muse. Deftly guiding readers through the inner workings of the human brain, Flaherty sheds new light on popular notions of the origins of creativity, giving us a new understanding of the role of the temporal lobes and the limbic system. She challenges the standard idea that one side of the brain controls creative function, and explains the biology behind a visit from the muse. Flaherty writes compellingly of her bout with manic hypergraphia, when ""the sight of a computer keyboard or a blank page gave me the same rush that drug addicts get from seeing their freebasing paraphernalia."" Dissecting the role of emotion in writing and the ways in which brain-body and mood disorders can lead to prodigious -- or meager -- creative output, Flaherty uses examples from her own life and the lives of writers from Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King: * Fyodor Dostoevsky, the author of nineteen novels and novellas and voluminous notebooks, diaries, and letters, suffere Full Product DetailsAuthor: Alice W FlahertyPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Imprint: Houghton Mifflin (Trade) Dimensions: Width: 13.70cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 20.60cm Weight: 0.408kg ISBN: 9780618485413ISBN 10: 0618485414 Pages: 307 Publication Date: 01 January 2005 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviews[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny. The Washington Post This is interesting, heated stuff. The San Francisco Chronicle Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page. Seattle Post-Intelligencer ""[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny. The Washington Post ""This is interesting, heated stuff."" The San Francisco Chronicle ""Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page."" Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- [Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny. The Washington Post This is interesting, heated stuff. The San Francisco Chronicle Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page. Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- Author InformationA. 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. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |