Depths were ok, I even managed to get the bosses on the first or second try. Just on the first planks of Blighttown, seemingly always falling short in my orchestration so far. 

The whole trip so far feels like a trip through the nine circles of Hell, particularly the Hell depicted in Pournelle and Niven's Inferno.

Obviously, that book was based on Dante's Inferno, but the modern interpretation raised some interesting questions, one of which is, what's the purpose of eternal punishment? In that story the protagonist, Alan Carpentier, finds himself able to move freely through the nine circles of Hell, in an effort to rescue others from the tortures of Hell. In this journey, he found himself unable to die, being resurrected, slowly, in place, to continue his journey. 

Carpentier encountered souls, for example, submerged in boiling blood in the seventh circle (outer ring) Phlegethon, who's sins were violence against people and property. The torment was meant to be excruciating with boiling and peeling skin as long as you were touching the blood. Souls attempting to leave the river were thrust back into it, for all eternity, except those who perhaps would find a more suitable circle deeper in Hell. No sense keeping the traitorous murderers in circle seven when we have something extra more special for them down in nine. 

Carpentier is also able to convince others that they can find a route of escape if they travel deeper into Hell, but only they are ready. Many of the souls he encounters in Hell are happy where they are and apparently deserve their fate. 

The burdens of Carpentier's task are enormous, but he can't die. No matter what horrors he sees or encounters,  he can always progress. 

I don't know the story here. I'd say it's a 'null' story so far. I don't know why I progress, or to what end. I do know that I have eternal patience for repetition and since I can't die, success and glory will be mine, bitches, in the ninth circle, or climbing up Satan's hairy leg in the frozen tenth, whatever. 

Can't someone do something about this squishy, still wiggling, breathed-fire-while-it-was-still-alive thing that's stuck to my foot? It's got to be hindering my stealth attack. 

Very committed here people. Hours of effort out from the last fire. Out of firebombs, but I am loaded with arrows and purple mosses. I seem to be down at the bottom in the poison swamp too scared to move. I may have to revisit the bragging I did last night. Will it hurt? 

Edit: Hmmm. I seem to be borken. I'm at the fire on a seeming bridge abutment in Blighttown. I've been down to the water, but ran out of health running through the water. I'm now out of purple moss, and for some reason, can't find my way back out. Does this mean I need to keep trying to go forward? 

Check me if I'm wrong, Botch & Xtal, but if you're where I think you are, Helmut, you should be able to head to your right (if you're facing out toward the retaining pool), and skirt the poison (more or less) along a very narrow bluff of mud. You're looking for a big concrete-y pipe, like a drainage pipe. There's a Bonfire inside, and it'll be an important staging ground for you.

A few points about the Blighttown swamp...

• This area is really big, but seems even bigger. It also has many nooks and crannies and plenty of interesting things to find. The poison discourages exploring, but like so much else, that's misdirection. Explore.
• If poison is a problem you can farm purple moss clumps among the tree-monsters in Darkroot Garden. This is more efficient than buying them. Frankly though I tend to just endure the poison. I'm pretty sure there's a Spider Shield in the Depths, too, which will help offset poison buildup.
• Like it or not you're going to spend a lot of time here, and revisit it frequently. The leeches in the swamp are the best place to farm large titanite chunks, which you need in vast quantities; there's an important character down here; and this is the only entrance to an optional area worth visiting later on (or now if you're suicidal).
• If you reverse your hollowing down here, you'll get invaded by an NPC named Maneater Mildred. She's a relatively easy fight (invasion occurs right outside the bonfire pipe), and if you beat her she's available for summoning against the upcoming boss.
• The pipe bonfire is a favorite place for other players to leave summon signs. It's like a clown car of summon signs. You should drop yours, too - since there's no penalty for dying in another player's world, it's a great way to scope the area.
• There's a shortcut back to the surface that's accessible from down here. Look for a huge waterwheel. The path is complicated and tricky, but it will grant ready access to the base of Blighttown so you don't have to go through that awful place again. There's no other fast way down until much later in the game, so I suggest finding the shortcut and mastering the path (in both directions), which will be very frustrating but ultimately worth it. I bet you could find some YouTube videos to help out.
• The Rusted Iron Ring is of great help down here. That necessitates a trip back to the Asylum where it all began, which is an adventure unto itself.

In my recent play as a pyromancer I wound up kind of living in the Blighttown swamps. I avoided them during most of my first playthrough (this is a bad idea), but once you know your way around, this area is actually among the safest in the game. The biggest irritant is those blowflies that spawn endlessly, but a bow and arrow takes care of them.

Exactly - use your White Sign Soapstone and you're leaving a message visible to other players, making yourself available to be summoned. You can be Hollow or not, it doesn't matter. Just drop the sign and go about your business. Sooner or later you'll see "You are being summoned" appear. The stone only works in some places, and the swamp area is popular because (uncommonly) it works right next to the bonfire.

Players can summon up to two others to help, any combination of PC and NPC. This is particularly useful against Quelaag because there's lots of room to maneuver in her area, and three attackers make it impossible for her to focus on any of them.

When you're in another player's world, you're a White Phantom. You CANNOT USE ESTUS IN OTHER WORLDS, so take that into account. Instead, you'll heal when the player who summoned you uses their Estus (this is part of the reason there are good and bad summoners and summonees. The summoner is responsible for keeping their phantoms alive. The phantoms are responsible for dying to protect the summoner.)

If you defeat the area boss as a White Phantom - survive all the way through the fight - you return to your world with some new soft humanity and a quantity of souls best described as a "holy jeepers fuckton." If you die before that, you return to your world without penalty. There's a formula to maintain parity of levels among summoners, summonees, and invaders, so in general anyone you help with be more or less at your level.

Righty-ho, to get back to the Asylum you must take the Sparkly the Crow Express. It involves some jumping around at Firelink Shrine, to reach a high tower above that shallow pool temple looking thing. Any description I gave would serve to be confusing; again, I'd say look to YouTube if you need help there.

I can never remember the invasion rules, but I'm pretty sure that you're no longer a target once the area boss is defeated. That's handy, especially since the Blighttown swamp is a common hangout for those needing to stock up on souls or titanite.

Well done beating Quelaag! She's not an easy fight. In my case, it wasn't until her that I really started using the multiplayer element, and it's a game changer. That and, like you, Blighttown was where I really began to notice the incredible care and attention to detail that went into the world. It only gets richer, to be honest, so you should enjoy visiting what's ahead.

When you started the game, did you happen to see any messages that read "The true Dark Souls starts here"? 

With the Chaos Witch down and the second Bell rung, the true Dark Souls starts here. Good luck!

After what seems like an eternity, I've got most (all?) of the interior Sen's Fortress mapped out and looted. All that machinery swinging the blades over the walkways (that you can see from one of the highest points) is really something special. I'm standing in front of the fog gate, too scared to enter. 

I have all that stuff. There was some loot in the place, I have to say. I'm at level 50, so the lizard dudes are pretty easy and they're easy to get behind to backstab, so that's good. If I run into them on a narrow pathway, they usually fall off after I block four or five of their attacks. The boulder mechanism is understood and all the paths sussed. I just need to commit. 

I did go back to get the iron ring and doll, and the ring is a great thing to have. The things that I do have serious problems with are the Knights when I don't have room (in a tunnel) to dodgeroll to get behind them, and that one Titanite demon in the basement of Sen's where you can't snipe with arrows around the corner. 

Is 97 poison arrows enough? 

Actually I'm not a backstabber, I'm a masher. The snake people can't do anything to me, 'if I don't get all squishy in the brain' and panic. Rather than blocking or parrying, the easiest thing is to just get behind them as they don't have any attack that gets round back there very fast. 

Now I want to get to the roof, and I can't seem to negotiate the swinging blades all in one go, like I have a dozen times before 🙁 

I will have crushed your death count in the journals if I ever get to the end. 

Anor Londo represents a major milestone, and it's effectively the halfway point in your quest. It's also the point at which you'll face a decision you don't know you're making that will (in part) inform how the rest of the story plays out, and it's where the story's many disordered pieces will begin to come together. Personally, once I got past Anor Londo there was no longer any doubt in my mind that I could finish the game if I chose - up till then I'd just assumed that sooner or later I'd hit a wall and lack the skill to continue. It's the last of the three psychological barriers I mentioned in the Diaries.

I always defer to xtal and Botch on strategic advice, but offhand I'd say if you've made it to level fifty without magic, you're fine continuing that way. Magic is handy, but if you're playing a class without innate magical ability, the investment to get good at it could be massive. You need pretty high Attunement and Intelligence to arm a large variety of spells, and certainly before any offensive ones would come close to doing the damage you're likely doing with a sword. Xtal and Botch will always tell you - rightly - that power in Dark Souls scales through your equipment, not your levels.

Each of the Blacksmiths specialize in certain kinds of equipment ascension, and require the appropriate Ember to achieve it. Blacksmith Andrei is conveniently placed (while the Anor Londo blacksmith is not, at least not at first) and once he has the Large Ember he can boost most weapons to +15. You can also use the boss souls you've collected in certain circumstances to make very special weapons, for which you typically need a certain Ember, a certain blacksmith, and a certain type of base weapon buffed to a certain minimum.

At level 50, you're exactly where most of the wikis say you should be for Anor Londo.

When it comes to farming, you might find yourself needing Large Titanite Chunks, which are best farmed down in the Blighttown Swamp. Those bouncing leeches often drop them, and a combination of the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring and the Rusted Iron Ring will make each run more lucrative.

If it's souls you're looking to farm, The Painted World of Ariamis is a good place to do that. You can also get yourself summoned. There's a good spot in Anor Londo (you'll run into an old friend there) to help players against the boss, which will have the added benefit of preparing you for what you'll face yourself. 

In my youth I loved RPGs for their vastness and mystery, but in Grouchy Middle Age I find them a little off-putting for the same reason you do. This is another reason I advocate in favor of wiki use in the Souls games. Even if you don't take advantage of everything you learn, it will help expand your sense of connection to the game and offset that feeling that you're missing something. Failing to realize how much a wiki would have helped me was one of the many mistakes I made in Demon's Souls, and was partially responsible for a growing sense of Very Small Person In A Very Big World I'd Never Understand that ultimately prevented me from finishing.