I imagine there isn't a "Beginner's guide to wayland server programming" drifting around the web, and the weston source looks daunting.
Is there a barebones wayland server I can look at to give me an idea where to start? Something I can run under X that I can confirm is recieving input. I'm sure I can go from there.
Take a look at the Small Wayland Compositor. You can either use it as library to build upon, or check out how it does things internally if you want to start from scratch.