Post by Calenture on Jun 16, 2013 22:23:54 GMT
The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice Flaherty (2005)
Too late to really do this one justice, but in case you haven't seen it this is a really fascinating one I found recently. Flaherty is a doctor and an author and suffered writer's block, and became interested in medical responses to this problem.
The title is from Poe's writings. Flaherty sees writer's block and hypergraphia (the overpowering compulsion to write) as two sides of the same coin - I'm horribly oversimplifying it here.
I'll paste in some more thoughtful comments from Amazon reviewers:
What underlies the human ability, desire, and even compulsion to write? Alice Flaherty first explores the brain state called hypergraphia - the overwhelming desire to write - and the science behind its antithesis, writer's block. As a leading neurologist at a major research hospital, Flaherty writes from the front lines of brain research. Her voice, driven and surprisingly original, has its roots in her own experiences of hypergraphia, triggered by a postpartum mood disorder. Both qualifications lend power to Flaherty's riveting connection between the biology of human longing and the drive to communicate.
The Midnight Disease charts exciting new territory concerning the roles of mind and body in the creative process. Flaherty - whose engagement with her patients and lifelong passion for literature enrich each page - argues for the importance of emotion in writing, illuminates the role that mood disorders play in the lives of many writers, and explores with profound insight the experience of being "visited by the muse." Her understanding of the role of the brain's temporal lobes and limbic system in the drive to write challenges the popular idea that creativity emerges solely from the right side of the brain. Finally, The Midnight Disease casts lights on the methods and madness of writers past and present, from Dostoevsky to Conrad, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King.
The Midnight Disease brings the very latest brain science to bear on the most compelling questions surrounding human creativity.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title ((Seems to refer to the book I've got and bought new! Rog)).
"[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 . . . precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page." Seattle Post-Intelligencer