Welcome, Solandre! ABC, eh? How 'bout this: Aim, Bravery, Computer?

Aim - what's your aim with mapmaking? You said to illustrate stories; fair enough, but beyond that tell us what style(s) you want to shoot for. That can be both a short goal of something that looks doable with some gumption and experimentation, but also what you really like and wish you could attain, one day. Helps to be shooting for something. Give us links to some maps you want to duplicate the style of - here on the CG or elsewhere.

Bravery - sounds like you already have a goodly portion. You get a lot further by just jumping in than by tiptoeing around the edges of an endeavor. Once you have an aim I bet there's one or more tutorials you can use to step, step, step your way to some degree of success. Have you rummaged in the tutorial section here? Some may be intimidating if you doubt you can even get to the first step, but keep looking and reading. Looking through ones that use software you don't have could still teach some terminology or some general processes. A few of the REALLY good cartographers here disclaim any artistic ability ... one can do a decent job just by following a recipe. Then since you have the blessing of ample time, you can then do the practice-makes-perfect routine. You haven't said - do you already have a sense of design, of composition, of art? Or are you approaching this as a mechanic, a technician? Either way has advantages.

Computer - tell us a bit about what you have as tools. We totally get the "must go for cheap" angle - many of us are in that bind. But how capable (or not) your machine is, could make a difference in what we suggest you try next. We could also point out where a really small investment might yield big dividends. Does the mentioned implode-diagnosis son do your technical support, or are you on your own? There's ways to, um, insulate one's equipment from a tendency to blow up electronics and software :-). By the way, an acknowledgement that one makes mistakes is a BIG boost to learning, particularly if you can roll with it instead of bucking it. I tell people at work that in learning by trial and error I can progress really fast, because I can make ten times as many errors per hour as some folks :-).

We'll give you some more ABC's once you have given us some feedback on the first set :-).