Three questions concerning lucid dreaming

Title says it all, so here's the first question:
Is it normal to feel like LD'ing is a struggle? I had my first LD today, I felt like I constantly needed to be focussed in order to maintain it. Now, there are two things I think could have caused that:
1) I was very near to waking up at the time, but I salvaged my dream from the brink of awakening. The strain was not of lucidity, but of the effort to remain in the dreaming world and prolong the dream.
2) I needed to focus in order to maintain my lucidity.
So the real question is, is it 1 or 2 (or both)? If 2 is the case, will the amount of effort it takes decrease over time?
My second question concerns WILD'ing... Since dreamspinning was so effective for me, could the same technique not be applied to the later stages of a WILD, like the hypnagogic imagery? Has anyone ever tried to spin in the later stages of WILD? What were the results?
The third question is also on the subject of WILD'ing. Is there an optimal time of day to WILD? Does WILD work, for example, if you're about to have a full night's rest, or should it be attempted in the early or late morning? Or is it all just a matter of preference?

If an experienced dreamer could awnser these questions and help me on my way down the path of lucidity, I would be eternally grateful. :D

On your first question, I suspect the problem is a combination of the two. When close to waking naturally, it can be difficult to sustain a dream, particularly when you've had lots of sleep, like at the end of an 8-hour sleep. As you have more practice being lucid, you will not need to focus quite so intensely to maintain the lucid state.

The best time of night to try WILD in usually towards the end of your sleep cycle. Since REM happens every 90 minutes, 6 hours or 7 1/2 hours into your sleep cycle is usually a good time to try. Later than that, and you will probably have difficulty getting back to sleep and having a stable dream. That's been my experience, anyway.

What I've found is that to produce more lucid dreams, or at least more nights of them, you need to focus and be enthusiastic and honest with yourself about how badly you want to experience them when you are actually awake! When I'm lucky enough to find myself in a dream state and lucid, I've found that the more I focus, the less fun and shorter the lucid dream. I try to stay very non-commital during a lucid dream, and if it does start to fade, dream-spinning really helps me, too.