I don't agree that writing an emu is only for gurus and I say go for it. Check the official site of Dolwin:
http://dolwin.emulation64.com/
You will find there links to other pages with documentation. You can also download the source of their emu. It will give You a visual of how emus are written.
Maybe You won't write a full working emu but I'm sure You'll learn a lot about emus and have fun with it.