Best way to go about writing an emulator?

So the next step in my journey of developing the RX-GP16 ISA is writing an x86 based emulator and assembler for it. I have a few ideas for how to do the CPU emulation with virtual registers in memory and having every opcode act as a function pointer to a routine for manipulating that data in ways the ISA describes.

But before I write garbage and burn myself out, I wish to ask some of you more experienced folk how you'd do it. Of course, I dont want to eliminate my critical thinking and innovation but wiser oversight could be of great assistance.

Thank you for all answers in advance!