I'm taking Wood Fired Ceramics, an awesome class, just now, and have done ceramics for about a year before this. Unless you happen to know someone who owns a wheel and kiln, I would recommend taking a class in your community, or, even better, at your local community college. If that's not possible, go to a ceramics store and ask them about where you can have pieces fired, and see about making some small pieces, experimenting with different methods and styles.
If you're really a do-it-yourself type person, you minght want to do a sawdust firing for yourself once you've gotten enough small pieces; it's low-fire and most classes tend to be high-fire, so be careful when choosing clay.
As far as learning the basic tecniques, nothing beats a real person. Really, I don't recommend learning from a book or website if you can possibly help it; it just not the same if you can't get any feedback on your work.
Whatever you do, make sure that everything is COMPLETELY dry, and not more then a half inch or so thick, or it will explode in the kiln, and everyone else'll be mad at you. If it's low-fire clay in a high fire kiln it'll malt, and ruin the kiln shelff too, so find out which you'll need first, before making anything.
