Quiet down! It's just a fur-wound!

So, I've been off for a week, taking the opportunity to write. At least, I tried to write. Basically, I listened to music a lot, watched movies a lot, and read a lot. The amount of time physically putting pen to paper was not a lot!
Actually, I spent zero time putting pen to paper. I carried on typing everything to my laptop. It seems to be working out fine that way - but whether I continue doing stuff that way is another matter. We'll see.
I seem to have damaged my health a bit. Headaches, aching stomach, tiredness. Never felt this bad for a long time. Chocolate, trash food, alcohol and some dodgy carry-outs have well and truly taken their toll, along with late nights leading into early mornings. Inspiration and mood: fatal wishes, when you're not sure where you're meant to be going!
But the writing has been good. At least, I hope it has been good. The chapter is not huge, and the structure was already there. But it's been very difficult to work out what kind of writing was needed. I knew where I wanted to be, and where I wanted to go, but not quite certain of how I should get there. Style and substance can be uneasy bedfellows.
Then, one night, I got something down that made me feel I was in the right place. It's all subjective, of course, and I may have only succeeded in creating a blind alley for myself and the reader. You can't do that with the first chapter. It has to open out at its end, informing the reader that there is more to come, and the following chapters must move on from it.
I'm about half the way through revising and rewriting parts of this first chapter. Another week, maybe; not much more
Casting aside a prologue of any kind, I feel I have at least allowed the story to begin at a moment of high urgency and activity. But it can't carry on like that. You will get to know no-one in any story if you crash and bang your way along. You won't care about it, after a while, and neither will the reader.
See, I do listen. Sometimes...