Casting - where am I going wrong?!?

As a beginner, we are working on so many things where it is hard to find a place to start.  Focus on mastering good opening principles--develop each piece early to its best spot; do not bring the queen out early; castle; before moving, make sure your other pieces are not under attack or hanging; did opponent leave a piece unprotected/hanging; do not exchange pieces unless it benefits you (do not help your opponent develop their pieces via exchanges); learn a few Openings (one for White, two for Black (1e4 & 1d4) well, then add as you gain experience. 

Most lower-ranked games are decided by losing "hanging" pieces; look for the errors form both sides of the of board. 

I looked at two of your games (no analysis, but quick overview); as black you lost via dropping a lot of material (typically one bad move created another , etc.) and you did not castle; as white, you castled early, had a minor piece & pawn (+4) advantage but all your pieces were back rank; however, Black had both rooks & queen connected (albeit on the back rank) and controlled two open files.  Your advantage could not be realized.

You are going to do well; do not get discouraged. cheers

This is very helpful CenterMass, thank you. Very kind of you to look at some games. I've been playing very badly the past few days and getting a bit discouraged. I hope you didn't look at the Blitz games. I am dreadful at blitz and genuinely planning to never play again! But playing a bit of blitz probably helped my vision. 30 minutes is probably too quick too tbh. But anything else just feels so time consuming. It is weird just how much I want to get good at chess. It's only a bloody game but it just feels so important! I just played very badly in a game but should have won at the end but made a mistake and it was stalemate!! Doh!! I still make dumb mistakes, less than I used to but still too many so I still need to iron those out. Anyway, thanks.

The classic riposte to an attack on the wing is to open the center and counter-attack through it. This will almost always paralyze an opponent's wing attack. 

If your opponent looks likely to castle on the opposite side (to minimize the effect of a counter-attack in the center, by removing his King from the hot-spot), then you might want to make a few preparatory moves that would support an attack on his Q-side castled King, before you commit yourself to castling on the K-side. These preparations for a counter-attack might even make your opponent change his mind and castle on the same flank as you do.

Blueemu, this is really clear and helpful advice. Thanks so much

Actually Blueeme can you please be even more helpful and give some examples of how to open the centre (yes, I'm a Brit) and counterattack through it? Thanks

I could give a few examples from my own games.

Here's one played here on chess.com, against an opponent with a 2500+ Tactics rating:

And this one was played in the final round of the Atlantic Provinces Championship in 1982.

Of course it depends on the position, but in general there are a few things you can do, depending on your opponents plans. So suppose you are Black. You could, for example...

- Watch out at your opponent's plan. If all her pieces are aiming at your kingside, you might not want to play 0-0 at all, but maybe 0-0-0.

- Delay castling for a bit. Once White plays 0-0, you can play 0-0 too, because it is unlikely that she will initiate a pawn storm.

- Once you castled 0-0 avoid weakening pawn moves in front of your king as h6 or g6 as it will be easier for White to open files. 

- Strike back in the centre. A pawn storm is usually ony effective if the centre is closed or stable. Also you can attack White's king in the centre.

- If White plays 0-0-0 counter attack on the queenside and do the same with your pawns...

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