For lacing instructions, I use Gerd Schraner's _The Art of Wheelbuilding_. For whatever reason, I've found his guidelines much easier to follow than Sheldon Brown's or others (in other words, I haven't had to re-lace due to operator error using Schraner's book, as opposed to using other sources).

The biggest mistake I would make as a newbie wheel builder was to tension the spokes too much too quickly. Then, I didn't have any room for correction and ended up with a few taco-ed rims. So my advice is to bring the tension up slowly and uniformly. It's easiest to get a rim reasonably true, then tension all of the spokes equally, check for trueness again, tension again, etc.

Neal