Write Away

I usually start by writing the scene that called me to the story, at least part of it, to get something on paper. It gets me excited and grounds the idea. Then I outline until I have my head wrapped around the story enough to know what I want to write next. My outlines are done on notebook paper with a word or phrase to refer to a scene and then an arrow and then the next scene and so on. Usually not much detail beyond that - I put any details on a different sheet, like a zoomed in outline. My first novel length draft I wrote from beginning to end, because I felt like I had to, to know where everything was going. For my second one I've had Scrivener, and that let me lay out placeholders for all the scenes in order, and for this one I astounded my order-loving brain and wrote whatever scene was most interesting to me on a given day. It actually worked really well. Then as I'm working on a draft I'm periodically re-outlining because the plot always changes when I get into it, and I have to work through it on paper where I can see everything.

That's how I work.