Welcome to SRP from The Springs.
We will meet someday if you get to our meeting in Denver in the future. It's too bad you didn't join last month as we just had our meeting and it only happens a couple times a year. Now to the meat of your issue...

As Bob said!
Trying to learn to shave with a straight NEEDS to be done with a PRO Honed razor. Not one you are learning to hone with. Honing take a long time/many many hours of sitting in front of the stones to figure out exactly what you're doing and when to progress to the next stone. You can learn to hone and shave at the same time.
I did!
BUT, I shaved with Pro honed razors and learned to hone on other razors. I have been honing for almost two years, every weekend I have, and I'm now getting to the point where I get good results 80% of the time. At a guess, I bet I've honed 150+ razors now. Now I'm not saying that it takes this long for everyone to learn. But I would guess for most it does take many months of honing before it STARTS to come together. Then depending on how much perfection to are into it could take even longer.
A loupe is a big plus and learning to use it often. You need to see what you are doing to the edge with each stone, looking at the edge every 10 or 20 strokes, understand what you see and why it now looks that way. Then to know its time to continue on. This also takes hours of staring thru that little glass to know what you're seeing. You can find lots of pics of Edges being honed on this site that will help you to learn what you're seeing.

The one thing that will help you right now is to send out a razor or two, to someone that will hone them up right for you. Learn to shave, lather and strop. If you want to learn to hone at the same time, don't do it with a razor your learning to shave with. Good luck and I know you will get it in the end, but as the old saying goes, after 100 shaves with a straight you will be just starting to understand what it's about. And I say, After 200 shaves with a straight you will then know that at 100 shaves, you really didn't know much. Just don't give up!