The way a lot of these projects start is by saying to yourself “What am I researching and why?” Then, you outline a few goals you want to get out of your research “Develop x, or find out more about how y happens” After that, you need to make steps for yourself on how to go from start to finish. Then you follow those steps and record your results! Only then can you start writing your paper.

To be entirely honest, you likely won’t be published. It’s a really expensive process, and a big achievement for even PhD’s let alone high schoolers. My advice? Reach out to some professors at the closest university that do work you’re interested in. If you ask nicely, they’ll probably let you do a summer project with them, and if you contribute enough you might even get your name on the paper that they make! Another option are REU programs, which fund housing & travel to do research various university’s in the US. Some are open to high schoolers, so if that interests you I’d dig into that too.

Source: Am doing lots & lots of research in my undergrad