1. Sketch out what you want the first iteration of the language to look like. Write some example programs in your language.

2. Write a lexer: a program which turns a string of source code in your language into a list of values like "open parenthesis", "plus sign", "if keyword", "identifier". These values are called tokens. To test your lexer, output each token and see if your example programs tokenize properly.

3. Write a parser: a program which turns a list of tokens into a structured representation of your program's source code. For example, "if keyword" "identifier" "equals sign" "number" "then keyword" "print keyword" "identifier" might turn into an IfStatement with a predicate EqualsExpression (that itself has a left IdentifierExpression and a right LiteralNumberExpression) and a list of Statements for the code to run. You can write the parser yourself (look up recursive descent parsing) or use a parser generator tool to do it.

4. Write a code generator: a program which goes through your structured representation and outputs lower-level code (in this case, C) for each expression and statement.