Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Every question-and-answer session at a book event is an illusion; it's the one doing the living, not the one doing the writing, who is present on such occasions. How could the writer be there, since no writing is being done at that moment? Like Jekyll and Hyde, the two share a memory and even a wardrobe. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.
The one doing the writing has access to everything in the memory bank. The one doing the living might have some idea of what the writing self has been up to, but less than you'd think. While you're writing, you aren't observing yourself doing it, because if you start studying your so-called process while in full flight, you'll freeze.
Is writing a trance state, as Coleridge's story about is writing of "Kubla Khan" might suggest? Not quite: you can break off, go for a coffee, answer the phone, show every sign of normailty. Or I can. Yet the sensation of something else taking over can't be ignored; too many writers have testified to it. Flow state, inspiration, characters seizing the initiative from their authors, dream visions, out-of-body experiences - these kinds of testimonies are too numerous to be dismissed.
On top of that, perhaps there are (at least) two models of writer: devotees of the lyre-strumming Apollo, highly concious of structure and harmony, with his bevy of Muses; and those who call instead upon Hermes, god of tricks and jokes and meassages, concealer and revealer of secrets, patron of travellers and thieves, conductor of souls to the Underworld. If you're doing a revision of a draft, you need Apollo; if you're stuck mid-plot, you might invoke Hermes, opener of doors, though there is no guarantee about what might lie behind that door. That the two gods are joined at the hip is evident in their mythic origin stories: it was Hermes ho made Apollo's lyre in the first place. Most cultures have a version of this duality, since both form and energy are needed for any work of art.
To this we might add Bacchus, god of wine, proponent of divine intoxication, dissolver of inhibitions. Quite a few writers have written while under the influence of something or other. In my case it was caffeine.
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