More error messages would help in determining your problem.
Overall though, compiling a kernel is not that hard really. There are tons of threads discussing this with great info. But I think every newbie should compile one sometime or another, to familiarize yourself with the process. But one word of advice, unless theres some kind of security vulnerability, there is never really a reason you have to update your kernel if the current one already supports all of your hardware.
Also, its spelled kernel and not kernal..