Stick in there, it gets easier with practice! Once you start to recognise how the characters are written and get used to the extraordinary ways that 17th Century writers found to spell things wrong it becomes a lot easier.

One resource I always found very useful was the Cambridge University alphabet guide, which has examples of alphabets and individual letters. If you're not sure on a letter you can click on it and see a collection of different examples of the way the letter has been written. They also have a list of manuscripts of increasing difficulty here that you can practice transcribing.

Hope you dont mind me jumping in. I am a full time calligrapher and a study of scripts is closely tied to the job. There are three books that are invaluable to any calligraphers study of the scripts.

Historical Scripts From Classical Times to the Renaissance, Stan Knight, ISBN 978-1-884718-56-4

A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600, Michelle P. Brown,ISBN 0-8020-7206-2

The Historical Source Book for Scribes, Michelle P Brown and Patricia Lovett,ISBN 0-7123-4618

We tend to look at the letters slightly different as some stroke movements make sense when done with a pen, especially with a quill on vellum.

IF there are any questions, feel free to let me know.