Half the time, writers lie. Writers pretend they know what they're doing. Writers throw themselves into a trance state or an obsession and discover a character or an action that they're interested in and just cut loose. If they're any good. The ones that build outlines and try to follow it like paint by numbers tend to be bad writers.
Good writers tend to be ecstatic, drunken on their own language, and ruthless editors.
Meaning you follow the story wherever it's going to go, you follow the language, and then afterwards you cut out three quarters of it. But you don't know what you've done until you've done it. And you only begin to have some realization or some judgment of the process in which you rewrite or edit. The basic thing that all young writers need is the courage and the ability to trust themselves. To follow the trance out and see what happens.