I was exactly where you are a year ago. I purchased a copy of Nick's "The Strip-Built Sea Kayak". This is pretty much the bible for strip building. OneOceanKayaks.com and LaughingLoon.com also both have their own manuals. I own all three. There might be others. I'm using techniques from all three as well as this forum and some of the members' personal websites.

You'll need to decide whether you want to build a strip-built, a stitch-and-glue (S&G, plywood), or a skin-on-frame (SOF). You'll need to decide on the style of boat that you want: expedition, surf/play, greenland/british, hard/soft chine, etc. Start looking at the boats on Nick's site, CLCboats.com, PygmyBoats.com, Redfishkayak.com, OneOceanKayaks.com, LaughingLoon.com, Outer-Island.com, ThomassonDesign.com (hint: Chrome is really good at automatically translating Swedish), etc.

You'll need to decide whether you want buy a full kit, just plans, loft your own forms out of own of Nick's books, or find some kayak design software and design your own. I went with plans. There are several decent hardware lumber places in Atlanta but none had Western Red Cedar so I ended up buying rough Basswood and Spanish Cedar boards, which means many hours planning and ripping your own strips. Do you have prior woodworking experience? Do you have access to a good lumber yard?

If you go the strip-built route you'll have to decide between staples and staple-less. I went staples. I found wood putty that matches both species of wood and the staples are invisible. We'll see if they show up after the epoxy goes on. You'll have to decide between bead and cove or rolling bevel. I went with the rolling bevel and have never looked back. Got a nice Lie-Nelson low angle block plane for my birthday. Its been the best stress relief ever. Better than Yoga.

Regardless of building style you'll have to decide on deck lines or not, bungee layout, deck line/bungee attachment (wood pad eyes, metal/carbon fiber pad eyes, soft pad eyes, Maroske fittings), hatch hold-down method (magnets, internal bungees, external straps, ...), rudder or skeg or neither, deck design, foot braces, cockpit coaming type, cockpit recess or not, paddle parks, etc. The list goes on and on.

One thing that has consistently amazed me is how small this community of builders is, and how frequently innovations are occurring. Many of the coolest innovations have come from the members of this forum.

I personally got a lot of inspiration from the web sites of John Caldera, Kurt Maurer, Etienne Muller, Sean Dawe, Ross Leidy and many more. Here's a few links to get you started:

http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/guillemot/
http://www.clcboats.com
http://www.pygmyboats.com
http://www.redfishkayak.com
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com
http://www.laughingloon.com
http://www.outer-island.com/Kayak-1.html
http://thomassondesign.com
http://www.outdoorplace.org/paddling/
http://www.sawdustfactory.net
http://etiennemuller.com
http://justyakkin2.blogspot.ca
http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/index.html