Getting Started

Following the theme of the Quote of the Week, I wanted to throw out some thoughts around getting started on a new project.

As many of you know, I recently completed my 4th YA Contemporary Fic, 4 Letter Word. It's hanging out right now, revisions recently started, additional layers being added as I begin researching agents to query for my other project, Just Maybe.

On the flip side, there's this other project: Grace that I've had my head swimming in for a while now. Usually I work on multiple projects at once, but this one feels different. I feel like I need to pour all - well, at least most - of my energy into this and as such, I haven't made much progress on it in the last couple of weeks. I've laid down thoughts, some additional words (I've got about 9,500 to date) and am still working through an outline, but honestly, I can't figure out a good way to really dive in and get started.

I have a friend who's recently started working on a project, similar genre, and she's been swimming in research, something I've detested since I began writing fiction, and I'm wondering if that's really where I need to begin now. I already know this new project will require some amount of research, the actual quantity TBD, but I'm going to have to suck it up and do it. So should I start now? Will it help put some thoughts in order? Or will it only throw me off base even more? I don't know.

This definitely made me think of this week's quote because in this case, for me anyway, getting started is the hardest part.

So when you have a new project, how do you get started? Page 1? Chapter 6? Research? Outline? I'm interested to see what you guys do to get things going!