You could log on Sphere's irc channel and wait around for answers there. Dragonfire frequents it, and being an Aussie he's probably on "late" aswell. I'd offer to help but I'm not a map maker, just idea-spitter-outter
As far as making the map before you learn Sphere scripting, yes you can. The map is independant of emulator, you could make it on UOX for all it matter then use it on RunUO or Sphere equally well.
I've gone through what you sound like you're going through, a frenzy to get everything done and ending up getting nothing done because of it. The pressure to finish Tragena is ridiculous sometimes, and other than Acratia scripting the spells... I'm the only scripter for it. I went offline for 4 months while building and mapmaking continued, so of course scripting got pushed even further behind for it. To make matters worse I came back to so many syntax changes in Sphere that nothing I had done worked anymore and nothing made any sense to me at all. I very nearly gave up that week and abandoned Tragena as impossible. I told Dragonfire I was going to spend a week or two doing nothing, and we'd see how I felt after that. I guess it was what I needed... a week and a half without a single worry or desire to work on the shard. I got my motivation back and started work again... one small script at a time. When I finish one thing, I start the next.
The morale of my story? You're not superman, take it easy and don't try to be. Your map will get done when it gets done. Burnout is high on custom map shards, I found out even Tragena isn't immune to it. You aren't on a deadline to finish, and it doesn't matter if it takes you another month or another 3 years... you'll get it done when you can. Small, deliberate steps... one at a time
