I generally write in order to work out an understanding about something and to figure out what I think about it; the writing itself is a process of discovery and I never know what I think about something, much less what I’m going to say, until I’ve written something and, as a result, reached a greater level of understanding and clarity of thought about it. But that writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it involves all of these steps.

There is certainly value in iteration and progression through a methodical process, but rarely can, for example, a problem even be well-defined until after you’ve done a significant amount of research in the first place. It’s more likely that you begin with some vague notion, and through some messy iteration of these steps, ultimately come to the real problem and your conclusions about that problem simultaneously.