Re-Charting the Course

I failed miserably with most of my goals for the first three months of the year. I wrote consistently, at least five times a week which is a win and most of those weeks I put out 1500 words or more. All of that is a win, and I believe that no writing time is wasted. Even if every word you write is cut, that time was well spent because you stretched those muscles and hopefully learned how to write and create better for the next story. 
Still, I'm feeling a little dejected. I spent four years at college, two of which were spent in a creative writing program, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It was great practice for learning how to give and take critique to and from others. But I've realized over the past few months that pantsing a story is hard to do well. In all my time at school, I was told story = plot. Plot is the external events of a story. That much I understood. And I also understand that a character needs to change. But after reading Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker and now while I'm currently reading through Story Genius by Lisa Cron it occurs to me that none of my classes ever taught me how to plan out a story very well.

On top of that, I feel like the internal struggle, the actual story, the part the reader cares about is missing from the Stripper and the Saint. This is the second total rewrite I have done for this story. It is greatly improved over the first version that I wrote for Camp NaNoWriMo 2011. And again, I don't feel I've wasted the time I've spent working on the story. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating to realize there may be a third total rewrite coming in course of the year. I haven't decided yet if I will try and edit the internal struggle into what I have or if I'll scrap it and start over, but I do know this is a story I want to tell. I've been trying to tell it for almost eight years now and I will eventually succeed. 

What's the biggest struggle you've gone through on your writing journey? Or if you don't write, what's the biggest struggle you've gone through in your life? I'd love to hear from you,
​K. A. Jairl