Learning scales and chords is all well and good and they will pay off later on but I almost quit once or twice because i was so bored with them. I found a simple song in tab (a lot of good ones here) that I, wanted to play and practiced it everyday, it will sound like crap because you will be playing it slow and making mistakes along the way.
Soon you will be picking up the tempo getting the fingering and Viola! you know a song. It makes it somewhat easier to practice those chords and scales if you know a song you can play in the middle of those practice sessions. Let me caution there are no alternatives to learning those scales and chords but it will make it a lot easier.
I'm no guitar player but I know about 6 Bluegrass songs and 4 blues songs after a year, not much I know but I don't need anything in front of me to play them. It's a struggle and my old feeble mind sometimes is a deficit to me, I ordered Kurt's
PT so I'm hoping new horizions will be opened up to me very soon.
Everyone wants to solo right out of the gate, it isn't going to happen unless you are guitar prodigy. But no one says you can't have a little candy now and then along the learning curve.