You've got some time to plan out your transition :)
I'd pick up a Raspberry Pi 400 or a renewed Steam Deck depending on your budget. Those devices have amazing communities and both will build familiarity and confidence with the environment just through play. Find a project that interests you with one of those devices and follow along trying to re-create it. That's where you'll find most of your blog/YT stuff. I'd be happy to help try and find a project if you'd be up for talking about some of your interests or hobbies.
IMO the most important thing is to start using cross platform applications (E.g. LibreOffice, the GIMP) on Windows as well as you start learning the Linux environments. Especially if you are coming from the windows 7 or earlier era of gaming PC building, actually installing Linux is a piece of cake. Once you have confidence with the programs you'll be using and the resources available you'll have conquered a lot of the fear.
Honestly you'd be fine starting out with installing linux yourself 90% of the time, but I think it's worth the peace of mind to start out with a pre-installed distro on a well standardized platform like the rPi 4 or the Steam Deck.
I don't usually recommend a VM for learning linux TBH. It is a cheap way to get access, and for labs it can be convenient, but virtualization is kinda hit and miss on consumer UEFI and CPUs. Grabbing a rPI 400 is a far more consistent user experience.