Develop, develop, develop
I tried to start developing in 11 years. It was hard for me. I used to play with flash, write simple web pages. I never completed anything of that. It was hard to start without any knowledge. It got better on high school, where we learned, php. I personally hate that language now (It's such a mess of every possible code style mixed together), but it's better then starting learning C++ on your own.
On high school I got in touch with a lot of new technology for me. We started with C, C++, assembly, SQL, Lisp, Prolog, Perl, Haskell, Python, Java and many others. Through time I made my opinion on these languages. With some of them (Sorry Haskel 😉 ), it was a long way from nightmares, through acceptance to admire.
I my free time, I like trying new ways. I play with ideas and try to accomplish them.
By now, I mainly develop in C++, Perl and X86 assembly.
SImple rules I try to follow on my projects
Keep it simple, but not simpler
I believe, that every code should be as simple as possible. There is no point in writing complicated statements. It's better to write two time more code, than less one, which is harder to read.
Don’t be another sheep in herd
Don't follow authorities blindly. It's not allways the right decission to stay in the crowd. Be a bit smarter. Allways try to add something new to well known solutions.
Version control
On every project I begin, I use GIT. If you like SVN, go for it. But always use some version control system. It's always good idea to save your progress.