  Short Stories
This week: The Midnight Disease Edited by: Shannon  
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Welcome to the Short Stories Newsletter. I am Shannon and I'm your editor this week. |
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Everything I know about hypergraphia I learned from Fox Mulder. Okay, so that's not entirely true. I'm not even 100% sure it was an episode of The X-Files that originally clued me in all those years ago, but I do remember watching a television show that completely intrigued me. Who'd've thunk that there is such a thing as the opposite of writer's block? 
Anyway, the program featured a woman afflicted with hypergraphia who lived in a dilapidated shack, and every single inch of available wall space was plastered with hand-written notes of various shapes and sizes. There'd been a crime, and detectives used the woman's meticulous minute-by-minute ramblings of everything she saw through her front window (which she just happened to date and time) to piece together what occurred before and after said crime, ultimately exonerating one person and implicating another.
Edgar Allen Poe spoke openly about suffering from what he called "The Midnight Disease." Van Gogh, Dostoevsky, and Lewis Carroll are also said to have struggled with it, not to mention contemporary politicians and other well-known public figures. Unfortunately, the condition has also been linked to epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia:
Hypergraphia is understood to be triggered by changes in brainwave activity in the temporal lobe. Hypergraphia has been observed in 8% of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.
It is also associated with bipolar disorder. Manic and depressive episodes have been reported to intensify hypergraphia symptoms. Additionally schizophrenics and people with frontotemporal dementia can also experience a compulsive drive to write.
In and of itself, hypergraphia sounds more like a curse than a blessing, but it got me thinking about all the funky quirks and character traits we writers have at our disposal--things we can use to color our characters and paint their worlds. I Googled "phobias" and "psychological disorders" and "involuntary tics and twitches" ... I was like a kid in a candy store!  (Did I mention I Googled "idioms" too?)
My point is not that you should spend all your time watching The X-Files, (although I can think of worse ways to pass my time than looking at a young, fresh-faced David Duchovny all day long), but rather that you should think outside the box. As you watch something on television or listen to a radio program or read a book, ask yourself, What can I learn from this that will make me a better writer? What do I know now that I didn't before? What's the takeaway?
Be daring, be persistent, be unexpected, but don't be afraid to Google.
Thank you for reading.
 The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by neurologist Alice Weaver Flaherty is an excellent resource for those of you interested in learning more about hypergraphia.
 I also recommend the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) by the American Psychiatric Association, which provides writers with a plethora of useful, accurate, detailed information regarding every psychological disorder legitimized by modern psychiatry.
 http://psychological-disorders.net/ is an in-depth website about psychological disorders.
 http://phobialist.com/ has more information about phobias than you can shake a stick at.
 http://www.webmd.com/brain/tic-disorders-and_twitches contains everything you ever wanted to know about tics and twitches.
 http://www.idiomsite.com/ And I thought I'd throw in The Idiom Site for good measure. 
Hypergraphia. (2011, July 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:42, November 2, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypergraphia&oldid=439456402 |
I hope you enjoy this week's featured selections. Please remember to do the authors the courtesy of reviewing the ones you read. Thank you, and have a great week!
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The following is in response to "Short Stories Newsletter (October 12, 2011)" :
phillywriter71 says, "Hi, Shannon. I have to say I totally agree with you about when to write and go with each day as it comes to you. For years I tried to follow a rigid writing schedule with a set amount of pages, but now I'm doing exactly what you say: take each day as it comes as long as I write. Thanks again." Thank YOU for your thoughts! And thank you for reading and commenting.
Zeke  says, "I'm definitely not a poet of any kind, but when I confront what seems to be writer's block, I force myself to write a poem." Wow, I've never tried that! Thanks for the suggestion, Zeke. Maybe it'll help others out there. 
The Northern Optimist  says, "Hi. I enjoyed reading this article. I suppose I agree with you about sitting for a period of time until an amount of words is reached. If I was going to sit and write up to 2000 words a day I think alot of it would be jibberish. I'd like to share what works for me though. I've found that if I have an idea on my mind and just take the time to think about it, eventually I lose the interest or thought. What I do instead is just write. I sit down and just write about the subject and see what happens. Soetimes I'll right 300, 500 or 1000 words. I suppose it depends on how motivated I am. But what usually happens is I have something on paper or shall I say hard drive. It's not always good, sometimes it really sucks :p But if the idea is good i can work with it. Anyway, I just thought I would share that with you. Take care." Yep, I think that's a great idea! I think getting the idea down somewhere is essential, even if it's only a trigger word or phrase that will remind you of the idea later. Not every idea turns into something great, but everything great started with a simple idea. Thank you for your suggestions!
Doug Rainbow says, "The notebook idea does not work for me. The sit at the computer until you write doesn't work for you. I think we need to be careful of every all-inclusive or all-exclusive rule about how to write -- including this one." Hi, Doug, and thank you for your feedback. I just mean that writers should have something close by to write on so those unbidden ideas don't slip through the cracks of our memory and get lost forever. I can't tell you how many times I've had an excellent idea come to me in a dream only to be forgotten later because I went back to sleep and didn't write it down. I've had ideas come to me over dinner in a restaurant, while strolling through an art museum, and while hurtling through the air on a roller coaster. All it takes is a hastily-jotted down word or sentence to trigger my memory later ... and it doesn't have to be in a notebook. A napkin works just fine, too.
mr.sincerety says, "What if your short story were to be a long story?" Some stories can be told in 500 words while others need 12,000. I let my stories breathe, allowing each one to use as many words as it needs to get the job done. The editing and revisions come later.
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Short Stories: November 08, 2011 Issue [#4699]
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