I don't recommend taking a structured approach from the start. That's akin to picking up a violin for the first time and sitting down with the sheet music to Mozart's violin Concerto #4, and expecting to learn it note by note. It just leads to tears and frustration, and you'll likely give up before you've achieved your goals. Your work will be awkward, fussy and uptight. I run into a great deal of beginner drawers learning this lesson the hard way.

All formal university level drawing courses take an organic approach, because you're organic, you need reinforce the neural pathways between your eye, your mind's eye, and your hand, until the whole chain is connected and intuitive. You learn best through rapid iteration, and failing fast, over and over until all the fail has been worked out of your system, the same way a child learns how to do pretty much anything.You'll get to proficiency faster this way, I promise. Formal observed drawing courses haven't changed much at all in centuries, it's a refined and well understood process.

And do start with a pencil and paper. Bigger is better, feel free to blow money at the art store, but an HB pencil and photocopy paper will do at least for a while. Don't go to the iPad until you're confident you know what marks need to go where on a page to make an image.

I could go on about this at length, but that's why I recommended the book. Harold Speed's book is alright, but I've only parsed it, so I don't really know.