An Observation

I forgot to mention another aspect of 'discovery when writing'. I found that once an idea for a character enters my mind, and I begin to 'ask questions' of the character (where were you born ? what was your family like ? what kind of furniture do you have in your bedroom/kitchen/hut ?) the story itself would come to me in fully written vignettes.

That's how I got the outline for the novel I mentioned earlier; it was as if a story - already extant - was being revealed to me in bits and pieces, with the only price of this discovery being persistent in curiosity !