@textasfeelings heya! The first place to start is to follow @feditips if you haven't already! They've got a lot of resources to help you find your way around.
The first thing I would do is make an #introduction post (and make sure to use that hash tag). Tell people a little bit about who you are, and use hashtags when you talk about your interests. That will help other people who are interested in those things find you more easily. Also, as you post about things, use hashtags to help others find your toots by search.
You can also follow hashtags to get more content in your home timeline. I did the following things when I first started here:
get to know the people on your local instance and follow them. The more people you follow, the more content you'll see in your home timeline, and the more topics and people you'll discover to interact with.
follow hashtags (e.g. #boardgames, #martialarts, and #cyberpunk are some of the ones I follow)
interact with other people's toots; comment on them, like them, and boost them if you really like it! Interacting with people is the best way to find others.
cruise the federated timeline to see a bunch more posts from everywhere (the "firehose") to maybe give you more people to follow and interact with
Hope this helps!