To Write Planned or Loose

I pride myself on the time I spend organizing my stories.  They are conceptualized, bullet pointed, placed in order and checked for storyline and flow.  Then I sit down and write the book.  That is the way I write.  It works for me and I don’t leave out important facts.  I discussed the matter with a colleague who wrote quite differently.  This person came up with an idea and just wrote.  They went wherever the mood took them.  Having been so disciplined for so long I thought it might be fun to throw caution to the wind and just write on the next section of the book I am currently writing.  It was exhilarating.  I wrote faster and with greater zeal than I usually did.  Everything was going so well and then I hit a wall.  I was so far off the storyline that it was impossible to get to where I needed to be in the tale.  Should I just continue and throw the blueprint away?  It was time to look at what I had written.  The words were good but the story was a mess.  I jumped from topic to topic and missed crucial pieces of plot and character development.  There were items that would come into play later in the book I had forgotten to write into the passage.  In reviewing the bullet point plan I saw that I had totally missed the mark on the story.  It sounds easy to just continue on my fanciful flight but I am in the middle of a book in the middle of a series.  This is a house which is half way built.  One cannot go and start building in whatever direction they want at this point.  This is the time to stick to the blueprint or else you will have a disaster on your hands.  I did what I find hardest in this world.  I deleted a large section I had written and rewrote it according to the plan.  It was heartbreaking to see the fun, uninhibited words disappear forever but it had to be done.  Once I had it fixed everything followed beautifully and I even was able to add a few unplanned touches to jazz it up for me as the writer.  So is my friend’s way of writing wrong?  Certainly not.  It works for that person and I applaud that.  It is fun to write by the seat of your pants and throw caution to the wind but for me it is paramount to driving at night with my headlights off.  I don’t know where I’m going and it’s only a matter of time before I crash.  For me, the time to go wild is before the blueprint is ever made.  Then I can go off in whatever direction I want.  Once I choose a path, however, I must plan it and stick with it.  Perhaps I’ll do something on the side unplanned.  As for my books, I will stick to the plan.