Whispers

It starts off as a whisper in the back of your mind.
Perhaps it was only a word caught on the air while you eavesdropped on a conversation nearby you. Maybe it was only a lyric from a song, or a quote from a movie. It could be a beautiful picture, or better yet a beautiful view of a place you've never been before, but soon enough if your imagination is wild enough, you're building an entire world around the smallest of events.
This is your story, something that you created. Others may build houses with their hands but you have built a world with your mind, and now you're ready to write about it for the real world to see.

When you're starting off writing it can be very exciting, your mind immediately floods with all the wonderful things that will happen to you. In fact you probably spend more time thinking about how awesome your story is then you do actually writing.
Thinking is a wonderful thing, but a dangerous thing at the same time. In order for your story to develop you need to think about it, to mold it, shape it, construct it, and make it perfect. But remember this, even if your story is perfect your writing wont be. If you go along thinking your story and writing are wonderful and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot, everyone, including myself, will hate you. And you will get no where.
I have heard many people say that everyone has one good story in them, but the ability to translate that story with the pen or words is rare. Don't let that discourage you. You're writing is going to be bad at first. It may be bad for a long time. I know mine was and still is, but if you can learn to be content with PROGRESS you can do great things.
In the beginning it's all about getting it down. Write every idea, no matter how small, down. trust me, you will forget them later, if you don't write them.
 It can be daunting thinking 'man write a 90,000 word novel? i have a hard enough time writing a ten page term paper!' But it's much easier then writing a term paper, because its fun. Because it's all you, and there's no one grading your work. Just write, and write, and write, and write. Don't worry about going back to fix anything because your works not going to be perfect the first time around and if you try to make it so, you will fail.
An outline, no matter how shoddy, is a great way to keep track of what happens in your story. Everything happens supper quickly in your mind, but it comes out SUPER slow on paper. So its a good idea to have a small one telling you where your story is going. You don't even have to write your story in order. Many writers write the end first just so they know where the story is going.
Writing a story is a TON of work, no one sits down and says 'I'm going to write a novel' and does it. Many start, and abandon it after a week. THAT'S FINE! sometimes you need a break to make it better, but don't let go completely. Just loosen your grip.
Before i started writing seriously and getting a lot down I abandoned writing it a million billion times over the course of two years. However, the entire time i was thinking about it. It wasn't building itself in my word document, but it was building itself it my mind.
Don't ignore the whispers, write them down.