Reading, learning, practicing, then applying what you've learned. Rinse. Repeat. Learn to recognize patterns. Learn how to adapt things to the problem at hand. Also, decide what kind of development you want to do. I learned early on that I suck at making games. But I seem to have a knack for solving business logic problems. So that's where I apply my skills. I doubt I could even draw a line in VB. I'm probably lucky that I even know there are two ways to draw a line, DirectX and GDI. Neither of which I know how to use.

depending on where you are, (and possibly your age... you mention not wanting to go to college, but not specifically why) you may even want to think about an internship program. I used to work for a company that worked with local high schools for paid internships Jr & Sr years...

-tg