Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ May 31 2013, 5:26 PM BSTDo you write on a Pith Helmet holding a Butterfly net?
I heard the people who put the A to Z maps together start at P strange that.
Not strange at all. Most people have a "P" before they go to work.
Not planning on planning. Page 2
The good people who run the A to Z are Mormons and that's blasphemy so you will burn in hell.
Quote: Trinder @ May 31 2013, 8:33 AM BSTSo my question is this. Are there any successful writers out there who don't subscribe to the 'plan everything' plan.
I think Harold Pinter discovered his plays - characters, dialogue, action - as he wrote them. At least with his early work. I seem to remember reading interviews where he said this, possibly one in the "Paris Review", or such like.
And yes, I know he wasn't a successful sitcom writer, but he did write sketches. 
I do the same - let the characters develop. But then I'm not a successful writer - yet!
Saw this quote today.
"I've always said there are - to oversimplify it - two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But the gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener. In my Hollywood years when everything does work on outlines, I had to put on my architect's clothes and pretend to be an architect. But my natural inclinations, the way I work, is to give my characters the head and to follow them."
George R.R. Martin
So the definitive answer is..well, there isn't one....
Useful analogy. My friend wants to get back into writing again, and is unsure about his first steps - I'll send this to him.
As for me, I hate gardening, and I'm useless at drawing, so I'm definitely screwed. 