It’s appropriate to pause and say that the writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.… The not knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.… Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.
~Donald Barthelme, “Not-knowing”
Writing Fiction 