I have never been able to get it past 40 or so. Gonna try a mage out, and I will need solid enchanting. Tips please?

Should I start leveling it right away?

Enchant/disenchant everything (if you want name them along the way). Starting enchanting early helps.
Recharging weapons adds exp so weapon enchantments are good, enchant whatever you can even if you don't plan on using it.

What I do is when I'm at the College there is a ton of random clothes laying about, I grab them then enchant them with petty soul gems and drop them. It increases pretty quick.
If you have followers enchant their gear as well.

Finding the soul trap spell or enchantment is a must. Collect any and all soul gems in the beginning so you can boost your enchanting early.
Use the mage stone (standing stone) to boost your exp gain.

First, get the soul trap spell/enchantment as soon as possible and enchant your weapons with it if you're using them. Fiery soul trap is even better when you can get it. Recharging these weapons will also gain you some experience.

Buy empty petty soul gems only, unless you have tons of spare cash. Most of the wild animals you meet only have petty souls, and the capacity of a soul gem has no bearing on how much experience you gain from enchanting something with it. The Black Star is handy for bandits and such, though.

Like Griffix4 said, enchant everything you can, especially with things like waterbreathing, absorb health, damage stamina and, later, banish, as selling these items will generate income for more gems and stuff.

Buy soul trap, and courage spells. Then buy lots of petty soul gems.

Courage... is for deer, fox, rabbits. Make them come to you, then soul trap them. Fury also works... but if there are two deer you will end up with one chasing the other... and you will be left behind.

It is going to take a LOT of petty soul gems to enchant enough gear to get your enchant to 100. You should be carrying 20-50 of the things at any given time. When you have a lot of them a good way to get a ton of souls is to run along the northern coastline. There are plenty of wolves, bears, mudcrabs, but the prize is the horkers. Slow moving, easy to kill, almost always in packs of three.... and there are a whole whole lot of them along the coast.

Best enchantments early on, Turn undead, sneak. Best later on, banish($$$), paralyze($$), absorb health($$). You want the expensive enchants not because they raise your enchant faster, but because you can use the proceeds to buy more soul gems. When you have enough gold you can even start getting away with buying all the prefilled gems to raise your enchant skill even faster.

Save money, then look for the Enchanting Master trainer .

Then train until lvl 90, and leave that "massively enchant items" way to the end, in order to level up those last 10 levels. In the meanwhile, save up tons of soul gems.