I did have some success doing essentially what you said. My free writing was certainly a lot more colorful than the draft I produced. I had a hard time editing my free writing to fit the prompt, essentially stripping what little emotion there was out of it in order to make it flow. The ADHD also made it rough to stay on topic haha. I’d get really into what I was writing and then read it back and realize it was completely useless for the purposes of my essay