There's some paradox with writing my own HTML.  I my well go down that path, but as I'm learning, won't I be producing some junky code?  And if my whole thing is to use it on my site...  Well you get the idea.

That's the reason you use tools meant for it to help you, then clean the HTML if necessary.  That gives you a framework for learning, and a safety net.

In particular, that https://html-online.com/editor/ link has a clean function built in, so you can paste code into it, and then clean it of any irrelevant tags that might be put in.  There's also htmlkit that is a good, free editor for beginners.  The latest version now costs money, but you can still download the free version at http://www.htmlkit.com/download/.

I my well go down that path, but as I'm learning, won't I be producing some junky code?

Not nearly as junky as what Word produces, no

Wouldnt the easiest thing be to find a free-to-use template online that is roughly the layout and style you want -
then find an easy to use html editor with live (or on refresh) preview and edit. Maybe an editor with something like the UI used here for posting replies:



?

Evaluation version is free and has no limitations (I believe).

A nagscreen when saving is a limitation.

You could try this one:

"... Lime Text is a powerful and elegant text editor primarily developed in Go that aims to be a Free and open-source software successor to Sublime Text ..."

Not quite actively developed.