I would recommend going over your basics if your haven't done so already. These include: meditation, visualization, grounding, centering, energy flow and control, circle casting/releasing, correspondences (moon phases, days of the week, candle colors, etc.)
These should help get you started in the right direction. Information on some of these can be found in the featured articles section which is located at the following site address: http://www.spellsofmagic.com/featured_articles.html
There are also various threads on these topics in the forums, if you wish to search for them there.
I'm not really sure what chat you are referring to here, so I can't really be of much help to you there.
As Lonicera pointed out, there's a lot of making a spell work properly. If you first master the basics, every spell you cast will work (whether it works as you think it should, however, is another story entirely.)
Here's a quick outline for spell work:
1. Meditation -- Learning how to relax your body and your mind to enable energy to flow is paramount. Meditation is the key to unlocking your own, personal power. The more time you spend meditating, the better off you'll be.
2. Connecting to an External Energy Source -- For most earth-centered practitioners this is grounding and centering. For ceremonial magicians this is the Cabalistic Cross and/or Middle Pillar Ritual. Linking your personal power to an external source amplifies your own power greatly.
3. Entering the Sacred Space -- This is the casting of the circle and calling of the quarters, creating the circle where the astral and material worlds meet. Only when you are between worlds do your spells truly resonate with the universe. Casting a circle is very important.
4. Consecrating Components -- After you connect to your power source, you must take a moment to invest each component of your spell with energy. This may be done by picking up the object and holding it close to your solar plexus (breathing energy through the solar plexus is a great way to charge items,) or by anointing the item with a holy oil (as with candles, some statues, and some stones.)
5. Casting the Spell -- Now speak the spell, imbuing your words with power as you do so. Perform all ritual actions with meaning and purpose.
6. Communion -- At this stage of ritual work, you should again enter a meditative state. If you are doing candle magick (where the candles lit during the spell must be burned for so many minutes per night) then this phase is a good time to just let the candle burn as you enter a deeper state of trance. During this phase you may be granted a vision pertaining to your spell or to something else. This phase of the work is very important and should not be skipped.
7. Closing of the Circle -- The circle is taken down with the license to depart.
Look over these simple, seven steps. They are deceptive in their brevity. Start with point 1 and begin working on each point until you are able to successfully meditate, ground and center, and cast a circle. Once you have those essentials down (and have mastered the basics required to successfully employ those essentials) you'll be ready to cast powerful spells.
As long as you believe, it should work. It's pretty much just generating a thoughtform which is beneficial to that working, so ensure you have no doubts and focus. Then you should succeed. Bear in mind, however, that this is purely Mental magick and may have weaker or slightly different effects to other types of magick. If you are extremely doubtful, finding some form of inspiration or a deity that you personally connect with will definitely help.
Are you practicing alone or in a group? Often having a partner or several to cast with will help motivate you to study more, and adds more resources in information, memory, and most vitally; energy! See if there is anyone you can combine this part of yourself with, and then as you learn you can help one another. An example is as you memorize creeds, chants, spells, you can take turns where one focuses and meditates, and the other reads them. As you learn to mediate and visualize, and may be using written guides initially, one can read these to you in a soft voice, while the other trains them self to visualize. Then switch. Eventually the papers will be put away and it will be instinctual. You can arrive at this alone, but you will arrive at it faster with others that take the craft as seriously as you.
