Writing update or I'm in too deep to lose faith in my work

It's been a crazy-buzy couple of months with work and vacation putting the squeeze on my writing time and commitments. Welcome to the real world. I'm trying to de-clutter my writing schedule, shedding any unnecessary items and trying to streamline my thought process towards writing my novel.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard back from Del Rey about my novel pitch. I'm not sure what's the appropriate response time after my SDCC pitch, but I'm not going to let it drag me down. Preparing the pitch for my novel, Spirit Quest, has reignited my passion for the project.

My goals are to proceed as if I had been asked to provide a submission from Del Rey. So I'm going ahead with the following pieces:

1) Synopsis
2) Act breakdown
3) Character sketches
4) Complete the First Draft (aiming for 90,000 words)

So, how do I get that all done? Parking my butt in a seat and writing. No need for a writing schedule or reading countless books on how to decide on an approach for each of these pieces. No distraction from my core work. Those first three items should ideally happen in parallel with the last (and most important one). Targeting a 1,000 words a day might be too ambitious as I still have to wrap up a few other writing commitments, but at least for the first couple of months, 500 words should be doable. At that pace, a 90,000 word first draft should take me 6 months. But, thinking about the submission, I'd like to get that down to about 3 months, considering the amount of a first draft I've already written.

One of the roadblocks in my way is that I'm a outliner and really feel like I need to know where I'm going every time I sit to write. I need a direction and need to see where I'm going. Otherwise, I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, writing stuff that won't matter. But, I think I need to change that approach and focus on the writing and see what develops. Nothing really ever gets thrown away in terms of writing, it's all part of the process whether it's exploring a potential sub-plot, or developing a character in a way you might never have thought.