There are two basic ways to approach a writing project.

1. You figure out what the final product will look like and make a plan to achieve it.
2. You start writing.

I am reminded of a passage in Alice in Wonderland:

“Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, […] ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

I’m a fan of mixing the two approaches.

It’s important to have a vision for where you want to end up. But that vision might not be clear until you are some way along the journey.

The lack of a clear vision should not be an impediment to starting, either. After all, you will get somewhere if you only walk long enough.

Perhaps you have some sources or data that you know you want to write about. You may have to actually dive into that material and try to write about it in order to figure out what you might write.

Maybe it’s a book. Maybe it’s an article. Maybe it’s a series of articles.

As long as you look up from time to time and think about that bigger picture, you will be fine. I suspect there will come a point when writing a plan, broken into pieces, for the whole project will feel necessary to making decisions about next steps, prioritizing, and so on.

Write. After you’ve written, think about what this means for the vision you have of the project goals. Make that clearer. Figure out what other things it needs. Write. Rinse. Repeat.

Edited (categories updated) Sept 15, 2015.