I like this image of writing a novel.
And in my limited experience, it sounds spot on.
You start, and you barely know what you are doing.
A few sentences, a couple scenes, and sooner or later a little more begins to reveal itself.
Eventually, you start to actually have something.
E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
–Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird