Novelists reject the theory that their creative process involves a normal version of multiple personality, because the theory misses the mystery of art.

A number of writers have acknowledged that they have more than one self, at least two—a regular self and a writing self. Some writers have said that you cannot interview the one who actually wrote their books. Many writers claim that they have co-writers or ghost writers of one sort or another: muses, voices, daemons, shadows, the unconscious, narrators, and their characters, themselves.

But these same novelists object if I call the above a normal version of multiple personality, because that makes their creative process sound too rational, too explainable. And if there is one thing about their creative process that they are sure of, it is the mystery at its heart.