The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative BrainHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 28.04.2015 - 322 Seiten “An original, fascinating, and beautifully written reckoning . . . of that great human passion: to write.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, national bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind 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. “[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.”—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 mixes memoir, meditation, compendium and scholarly reportage in an odd but absorbing look at the neurological basis of writing and its pathologies . . . Writers will delight in the way information and lore are interspersed.”—Publishers Weekly |
Inhalt
Literary Creativity and Drive | |
Writers Block as State of Mind | |
Writers Block as Brain State | |
The Cortex | |
The Limbic System | |
Metaphor the Inner Voice and the Muse | |
References | |
Illustration Credits | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain Alice Flaherty Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2004 |
The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain Alice W. Flaherty Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2005 |
The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain Alice W. Flaherty Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2005 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
ability addiction alexithymia amygdala antidepressants aphasia argued artists auditory behavior believe brain regions Broca's Broca's aphasia called cause cerebral cerebral cortex cognitive cortex cortical creativity damage decrease depression described disease drive to write drugs dyslexia dyslexics effect emotional epileptic evidence experience fact feel Freud frontal lobe function hallucinations hippocampus human hypergraphia hyperlexia ideas images inner voice inspiration instance language left hemisphere less limbic system literary literature manic manic-depressive mental illness metaphor motivation muse neurological neurologist neuroscience normal one’s opiates pain patients perhaps person poet poetry postpartum problem procrastination produce psychiatric psychiatrists Psychology psychotic reading religious researchers right hemisphere role schizophrenic scientific scientists seizures sensation sense someone sometimes speech split-brain suffering symptoms syndrome synesthesia temporal lobe activity temporal lobe epilepsy theory thought transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment University Press visual Wernicke’s Wernicke's aphasia words writer's block wrote York