So someone asked me “Are you a "go with the flow” type of writer, or do you tend to plan things out?…

So someone asked me “Are you a "go with the flow” type of writer, or do you tend to plan things out? And how many pages of writing do you discard during the entire process of writing a novel?“

I plan things out and promptly throw away the plan while I’m writing. I usually know where the story is going, but it never gets there the way I think it will. I never “discard” pages. That would be too traumatic. Instead, I keep a side file called “cut material” and drop all unused writing in there. My cut...