When you say "never done this", do you mean never used .netrc, or never done an FTP script. If the latter, I suggest you get a simple script wokring first. It is is easy because you can do all the coimmands manually to verify they work and simply put them in a script on by one.
If the former and you just need to understand the .netrc file, then you should have man pages on netrc or search the web.
Example .netrc:
machine myserver login myuserid password mypassword
You have a command and value. You would simply replace the my values with your actual login info. The machine has to be listed in your /etc/hosts file.