Planning ahead is a real good idea. If you make a mistake, sometimes fast fingers and clever thinking can work you out of it, but it's best to do it right in the first place. Cursing doesn't help. Life gets a lot easier if you keep an eye out for what's coming next. If you slack off and get behind, it's awfully hard to work your way out of it.
Small differences are important.
You'd better know know your p's from your q's, and your Ls from your Js. If you can wait long enough, everything comes around. The score isn't really what's important. You started out with a playing field that you didn't make, but in the end, what you have is whatever you made of what you got. Eventually every game ends, and there's no use crying about it.