overstretching?

Iv been learning c++ for a couple of weeks and im really pleased with a few games i have made. My friends cannot really see why what im making is appealing to me or anyone. I thought id look into allegro and SDL to see what i could do. Iv managed to install SDL to studio 2008 and got the "hello world" bit nailed down with my own bmp that i made in paint.

Iv looked at some of the game examples that are on Main that also give the source code. Itsinteresting to say the least.

Now i feel really out of my depth. I will continue to make text based games as its fun, but i really want to add graphics to the programs i am making.

My question is should i continue to try to understand allegro and sdl or try something else?

or should i have more practice with c++ ( first language ) before trying anything else.

any advice would be awesome. To give you some backround, im not an academic and im just learning about programming in my spare time for fun.

Armed with SDL and LazyFoo's stellar tutorials, it won't be hard for you at all to get going with some 2D.

I will concentrate on that then. Might take me a while but its all fun after it starts making sense. Thanks for the advice again.