I personally practice all the time, but thats me and im very dedicated. So really the question is... how dedicated are you? My advice is practice when you can and to become a true guitarist, you have to make sacrifices like going out less to play guitar..... sounds boring? - i might pay off one day.

As for the calluses, this is a never ending cyle. Through out your guitar playing 'journey' callues is always developing. Yet like most things you have to keep it trained, because if say you take 2 weeks with no practice your callues will get softer. Also as your playing you will feel your fingers getting 'dints' in the ends and your fingers will ache like mad... and i mean ache! But I used to practice my scales till I was almost crying and guess what? I can now 'blitz' round the guitar in my sleep.

Hope all this helps, cheers :cool: