Perhaps tangential to your point, but I often write blog posts (although finish and publish far fewer than I start) where I write about something as it has occurred to me, informed by things I've absorbed no doubt, but without specific research. In such cases I explicitly avoid searching out prior work as a) seeing that something is well discussed and explored can take away the motivation to explore (in the same way reading puzzle solutions before starting might), and b) to avoid having green shoots of ideas shaped by the current of existing consensus. Now that doesn't mean I don't come back after doing my own thinking to see what the more well developed literature of people cleverer than me, who've thought far longer than me think; I just don't want to snuff out my own exploration at the start.

As I say most of these I never publish as I'm mainly using writing as a vehicle for thought, but when I do I'm never sure how to flag them. I don't want (imaginary, lets be honest) readers thinking I'm deluded into thinking I've found something new. I want to come up with a tag I can put on them which adds a pithy disclaimer card at the top or something so I feel more comfortable publishing them.