It's a real time sinker, the in game quest tracking is pretty good, if you get stuck there is a walkthrough too, or you can just ask questions in here for a sometimes better answer.
If you are new new I would suggest after the tutorial, beeline to Penny, she is the farmer girl. She will set you up with a room with a bed, so even if you get locked out of Emily's place, you will have a place to stay. Another tip is try to develop your free skills (the green text popups), most of those have anywhere from 2-4 free skill points tied to regular activity. So constitution (farming/working with the blacksmith), strength (mining builds this), perception (picking up shiny objects from the floor), herbalism (picking up plants), reading (reading books or scrolls), witchcraft (casting spells). If you balance the skill points you get from leveling, with the free ones you get from doing regular activities you will have an easier early game.
You can always just grind mobs for xp, but that isn't something possible early game really. Best place for this is the mine though, as the goblins will keep spawning more mobs, at least until you wipe out all 3 camps of theirs (they still spawn after that, but to a much lesser degree).