Answer:
Hands down the hardest writing assignment I did was self assigned. I had to turn my own research into a published article (the second piece published even harder than the first). The revisions were the hardest — I had to force what I had done to fit the interests/questions/concerns of someone else. Definitely worked on each for over a year. The cool part was that, once done the first time, I realized how useful the first article had become. I wound up devising my entire PhD dissertation to fit around a version of it. It became Chapter 4 of a 5 chapter effort. Everything I wrote was either to get to it or see where I went after it. Most useful.
