My First WordPress Plugin: What I Learned Along the Way

Hi there! 👋 I'm not a WordPress expert. Actually, I'm pretty new to plugin development. But recently I decided to build my first plugin and submit it to WordPress.org — and wow, I learned a lot more than I expected. Here's what the process taught me. Hopefully it helps someone else starting out. How It Started I run a small website called CalHolidays — basically a free holiday calendar with countdown widgets for days until Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and so on. People kept asking me: "Can I add these countdowns to my own website?" Technically, yes — I had iframe embed codes. But for WordPress users, that's not ideal. They wanted something simpler. Something they could just drag into their sidebar, configure in two clicks, and forget about. So I thought: why not make a WordPress plugin? What I Built (Spoiler: It's Simple) The plugin is straightforward: Adds a Holiday Countdown Widget to WordPress Users select a holiday (Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day) Widget shows "X days u