Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No.182, The Paris Review, 2004: His novels come to him in a mesmeric, waking dream, in which he feels split.

from Wikipedia

Haruki Murakami is a contemporary Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country.

1979: Gunzo Award (best first novel) for Hear the Wind Sing

1982: Noma Literary Prize (best newcomer) for A Wild Sheep Chase

1985: Tanizaki Prize for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

1995: Yomiuri Prize (best novel) for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

1999: Kuwabara Takeo Prize for Underground

2006: World Fantasy Award (best novel) for Kafka on the Shore

2006: Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

2006: Franz Kafka Prize

2009: Jerusalem Prize

from Paris Review interview

“When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s going to happen. I just wait.”

“When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what is going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out.”

“The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake.”

“When I’m in writing mode for a novel [describes routine] I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”

“…for me, my characters are more real than real people. In those six or seven months that I’m writing, those people are inside me.”

“…my protagonist is…a part of myself, but not me…It’s a kind of alternative form of myself.”

“My protagonist is almost always caught between the spiritual world and the real world…The protagonist’s mind is split between these totally different worlds and he cannot choose which to take. I think that’s one of the main motifs in my work. It’s very apparent in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, in which his mind is actually, physically split.”

“Sometimes while I’m writing…the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing…A feeling of a split.”