Well, not sure I'm the best person to offer advice. I prefer to play and blunder and try to learn from that than to read and try to understand theory. Just don't sweat it when you make a mistake...it happens !
Basics
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mostly it's learning how to develop my pieces. it feels like i have no idea where to put them. i understand how the ten rules work, but doing it while thinking ahead to the middle game is difficult.
Just seeing that you are aware that there are some opening fundementals such as a development stage is a good start. So many I see on here want to play e4 then launch an attack with queen & bishop alone. as far as openings go, just find one or 2 for each color & stick with them. get a book on them that tells you not only just moves, but the ideas behind them.
when I started playing it seemed that everyone wanted to play 1.e4, and so when it came to tournaments, I was sure I would lose because everyone knew so much more about 1. e4 than me. So I decided to go with 1. d4 in hopes of taking my opponents down a less familiar path with the Colle system. After playing that for a while and getting some fair play with it, I read some more and discovered the reverse stonewall. It looks just the same, except the f knight is held back a moment so I can play f4, with the knight playing behind it.then when the knight moves foward to park on e5 supported by 2 pawns he really puts the cramp on black. Just a subtle variation on a familiar opening gave the game a whole new feel, but not so knew that I felt I was in unfamiliar water. from there I tried other variations of queen pawn openings which were all just a subtle pawn push to a different idea. The Catalan, the Torre attack, the queen's gambit... which I play often depends on my opponents opening moves.
I tend to be a more reserved type of player, not prone to wild attacks, so as black I started with the Caro-Kann against 1.e4, because it had a reputation for being able to solidly hold off pretty much anything white threw at it (with correct play of course).
Of course there's nothing wrong with playing the monkey see monkey do approach against a stronger players opening, just mirror his first 5 or 6 moves, giving you at least equality in the open. But at some point you're going to have to take a step to the left & do something different to create an imbalance that might give you an edge.
But I think your biggest learning tool available is your own losses. play over them, and see if you can find at what point did things go wrong? what could you have played that might have prevented your opponent's attack? often a simple h3 push can prevent a lot of ugliness coming at your king. It's just a matter of learning when to play it.
The crux of it all is, the more you learn about the game, the more you se just how much more there is to learn. It's an almost never ending process. I still consider myself an amateur. I don't play an opening with a middlegame in mind, I play an opening that simply gets my peices ready for action. After (and during) development I look for weaknesses on my opponenets side that I can exploit. Try making use of forks & pins. A piece pinned to the king is defending nothing. ifyou want to grab his bishop, and it's defended by a knight, see if you can pin the knight to his queen. so when you do take the piece, he cant take back without losing even more.
I could go on forever, but basically, chess books are usually inexpensive, and they can take your game a long way. and it doesnt hurt to learn how to checkmate with just a couple pieces. King & rook, king & queen, king & 2 bishops, etc.
I am having trouble with the basics still. i try to focus on the ten rules of openings, but during a game it is difficult to not stress, and am never sure when to follow or break them. is there a simple way to practice without playing?