I'm also fairly new to the game, and I have been reading and researching online and in books for around 8 months now... And only just have I had a go at making a body from scratch. I only used really cheap softwood and I'm glad because I made a couple of mistakes that I put down to poor technique, which you can't really read about. There's so much more to guitar building than I ever imagined, every time I thought I knew enough, I realised there was another tool I needed or I read a build thread that highlighted something that I hadn't thought about! And this was just regarding making the body, I'm not even thinking about carving necks for now lol! I'm not saying this is the way it is for everybody, but as everyone says, you've gotta be prepared.
I did learn a lot from stripping and refinishing (with veneers etc) old guitars, which I would recommend before a scratch build. I'm not trying to put you off the idea at all, but it's not gonna happen overnight. Best of luck!