Maybe you should just get your feet wet with a blog if this is just a temporary thing. Go to
www.blogger.com and sign up for one. The nice thing about it is you can still practice HTML, adding AdSense ads, etc. without paying for anything. Registering a domain name is not hard so when you're ready to begin you won't have any issues with that step.
Now one thing you may want to think about when you're ready to do a hosted site is how you plan on building/managing your pages. If you don't use SBI! then I would recommend some kind of website building software. But you can practice with that without buying a domain name or a signing up with a host.
Once you become familiar with a web editor, publishing your site to a domain name is simple. Most people get tripped up at the "creation" phase and as I said you don't need a domain name and host to practice with that.
Some of the programs I recommend are CoffeeCup, Dreamweaver (a bit pricey) and some people use Nvu (I think it's still free).