Chipping away at my work in progress

I am ashamed to say that the novel I have been working on has been shelved for now. I'll probably keep at it here and there for the purpose of keeping the juices flowing, but for now I have something else on the horizon that I'm really excited about!

This new project is daunting, and I cringe to think about how long it will take to even complete a first draft, let alone go through the revisions and fact checking! You see, I am going to be writing a historical fiction novel. Despite the fact that I absolutely love the genre, I never really had any interest in writing a historical fiction because it's just so. damn. daunting. I'm a history minor, and so I will never half-ass a project like this. And while that's certainly not a bad thing, at the same time this is going to take a while. But regardless of how scary being at the start of this process is, I think this story is a good idea that I'm not about to pass up.

I've already made some good steps though: I have been writing out some ideas, and sometime soon I will be starting on an outline. I read one book for research purposes (that I loved!), and I have a stack of other library books that will be tackling sometime in the near future. This evening I also made contact with an old college history professor I had, and hopefully I will soon get a response that will point me in the right direction for some of the information I will need.

One thing I'm unsure of is whether I should do the bulk of my research before I start my first draft, or if I should just start writing and then fill in the details as I go. There are a few facts I need to find out in order to shape the plot, so obviously that will come first, but what about the little details? I'm not sure! I have a hunch that at first I will be doing a lot of trial and error before I get into a groove.

Regardless, I am super excited about this project. I'm not ready to share the details yet, but I think I'm going to have a lot of fun writing it. I am really looking forward to the process, and hopefully within the next few years I will be satisfied enough with it to begin to query agents.