Wandering and Directive Thinking

I have taken to writing some poetry and prose recently, in an effort to return to an old dream I had related to creative writing. Part of the motivation has been the wish to do something slightly less linear than the thesis dissertation I am working on: that is, to explore something a bit off the beaten path in terms of generating creative and new ideas. Another motivation has been my return to reading prose fiction, both in my classes that I teach and in my recent exploration of Philip Roth's Letting Go. Sooner or later, what we read rubs off on us, to the point where we wish to explore it in some way on our own.
  If I freely let my hand travel across the page (or, in this case, the screen), I am inclined to come up with crazy ideas that often bear little logical connection to each other. This is a kind of mind wandering that can induce all kinds of unlikely connections if allowed to run freely. On the other hand--and this is perhaps where I floundered in my early years---too much wandering thinking can lead to an aimlessness, both in writing and in life as a whole. Without a sense of directive thinking to accompany it, the writing not only becomes stale at times, but it lacks a form. Without that directive part, free writing easily devolves into something that is free-floating or even lacks an anchor or substance. I think the second part of this free writing is to go back and ask oneself where they really want to go in terms of their goals with the work itself.
   There is a dialogue that must happen between the non-linear thinking that often brings together shockingly different ideas, and the directive attitude which attempts to shape these ideas into a defined goal. Too much of the former leads to a sad or depressing aimlessness, while too much of the latter is too constricting. Finding that middle balance is the challenge of the writer.