I was once similarly minded in that I had read enough about programming to know what was out there and what it was used for.
I then formed impressions about what was 'hard' and what was 'easy' and what I would like. It took me ~2.5 years from the start of my desire to learn, to actually write my first line of code. Picking a language, then picking a learning methodology took me that long.
Then, 2 years of learning/programming on the side, I got my first paying gig for writing code (I'm was never a full time software engineer, just learning on the side, like you). This was 2 weeks ago.
Perhaps this is a common path, or we're a special breed. What helped me stay motivated was trying to solve my own problems with code. First project was a script that took data from a google spreadsheet and texted it to me at relevant times. Took me 3-4 months to complete. Could write it in 3-4 hours now.
Find a (small) problem, write code to solve it. Monetization will come, but probably slower than you expect.
Good luck.
I guess my concern is that I want to do quality work (with well-designed languages) AND earn money for it. I'm beginning to realize that (sadly) it's not really how things are done in the programming world. As long as you can deliver a fancy web-app in short time, nobody cares if you have used JS or ClojureScript.
It's true no one cares for the most part. But clients do want maintainability, so a more mainstream language makes your skill-set more attractive. Of course I speak as a freelancer, not from a product perspective.
I picked Python, because:
1. I thought I would give up if the language was too hard.
2. I didn't know what I want to build eventually, and Python seemed to be used everywhere.
Getting into the mindset of spotting problems, defining it's scope and writing code to solve that SPECIFIC scope has been highly useful. It's also something to continually improve at. Good places to start are complaints from friends/family about commonly used software.
I was once similarly minded in that I had read enough about programming to know what was out there and what it was used for.
I then formed impressions about what was 'hard' and what was 'easy' and what I would like. It took me ~2.5 years from the start of my desire to learn, to actually write my first line of code. Picking a language, then picking a learning methodology took me that long.
Then, 2 years of learning/programming on the side, I got my first paying gig for writing code (I'm was never a full time software engineer, just learning on the side, like you). This was 2 weeks ago.
Perhaps this is a common path, or we're a special breed. What helped me stay motivated was trying to solve my own problems with code. First project was a script that took data from a google spreadsheet and texted it to me at relevant times. Took me 3-4 months to complete. Could write it in 3-4 hours now.
Find a (small) problem, write code to solve it. Monetization will come, but probably slower than you expect. Good luck.