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

Everyone knows why we avoid the stuff we *don't* really want to do. But why do we avoid stuff we really *do* want to do? There are no easy answers to questions like this, but what an eye-opening experience it is to start to understand some of the tricks the brain plays on itself. This is an incredibly unique, honest book and God bless Dr. Flaherty - both for her ability to explain neurobiology to the uninitiated and, still more, for her willingness to bear her soul a bit. Buyer beware: This is not a self-help book. It's an intimate conversation with a remarkable person. It won't change your life; but it might alter some of the ways you look at life.

Dr. Alice Flaherty has given us a powerful and original work in THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE. Her scientific knowledge about the discreet functions of the different brain areas highly qualifies her to offer a thesis on the origins of human creativity. In addition, Dr. Flaherty's vast general knowledge, compelling narrative style, and personal experience with both postpartum depression and hypergraphia make THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE a fascinating read. This book provides brilliant insight into the questions that surround our impulse to create and communicate. And her chapter on the sensation that artists have of "being visited by the muse" is absolute genius. Keep your yellow highlighter pen at your side for this read-it's chockfull of amazing passages.

Hypergraphia, about which I knew nothing prior to reading this book, is the medical term for an over-powering desire to write. Writing, Dr. Flaherty tell us, is the domain of the cerebral cortex, but the desire to write is the domain of the limbic system -- the hypothalamus and the structures of the temporal lobe. It is altered temporal lobe activity that is associated with creativity. On the other hand, frontal lobe processes are involved in writer's block. This area, as science, struck me as new and very much evolving. The most interesting section of the book, even more speculative than the location of writing proclivities, is her commentary on the inner voice and its role in writing. This is an area where strands fuse -- religion, creativity, psychosis. For Dr. Flaherty it was one morning "that bristled with significance. The way a crow flapped its wings as it rose heavily off the ground was a semaphore, signalling something just past my understanding." And not long after she heard, "the opposite of writer's block," her signal to write about hypergraphia. This internal/external presence of a voice became manifest to her following a depression brought on by the death of twin infants. Remarkably, if not miraculously, she later gave birth to another set of twins, thriving at the time of her writing. This is an unusual book. She interweaves her personal history and her clinical training. Coupled with a wide and diverse reading, Dr. Flaherty demonstrates in this book an intense mind; reading her is like riding with a mind in over-drive. I look forward to her next book, and she has all but assured us that one is in the making.

I picked up this book after hearing the author on NPR, and I figured I'd skim through it. Instead, I was completely drawn in by the mix of science, historical anecdote, and moving personal story that Dr. Flaherty has assembled. We've all suffered from writer's block at one point or another but I'd never heard of hypergraphia, and the things she has to say about how the brain works and can cause creative disorders are totally fascinating. I plan to recommend this book to all my writer friends.

As a teacher of English composition, I am often given silly self-help books on writer's block, and I also generally shy away from dry scientific books about the brain and language. This book is neither. For one thing, its writing is surprisingly lyrical. And, although it doesn't offer any panaceas for writing problems, it teaches you how to look for solutions that will work for your particular problem. As a bonus, there are many fascinating anecdotes about literary figures.