Answer 1

Yeah, OS development is pretty much dark magic which only the neckbeardest of people can even attempt to do well, but just getting an USB stick bootable and have it print "Hello world" onto a black screen is.. doable! And pretty cool on it's own.
Once you have done a bit of C and understood pointers and all that you can totally tackle that in an afternoon. A bit of reading is required though :)
It's an exciting topic and if that's what you want to get into, do it! No way around knowing some C or C++ though.