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The Midnight Disease:

The Drive To Write, Writer's Block, And The Creative Brain
Front Cover
31 Reviews
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 307 pages
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.
  

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Review: The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain

User Review  - Bucket - Goodreads

Book: "Hey you! Curious about brain science and writing? Sure you are. I'm accessible and fun, go ahead and open me up! No, really. I'm totally like a layperson's pop-science book about The Midnight ... Read full review

Review: The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain

User Review  - Carl Plumer - Goodreads

This is a fantastic book for writers (or any creative) who like to read books with a scientific bent. Lots of science here (complete with brain diagrams!), which can get a bit dull here and there. But ... Read full review

All 30 reviews »

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Contents

III
17
IV
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V
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VI
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VII
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VIII
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IX
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X
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XI
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XII
285
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About the author (2004)

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.

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