The SQL thinking process for complex queries...

Hello all,

I pose this question to the experienced SQL developers on this forum, since I've tried for years to find an answer to my question, and have yet to find one. In my years as a programmer working with and maintaining some very complex SQL queries, I've been unable to fully understand the thinking process one has to have in order to be able to create such incredibly sophisticated SQL queries. Is there a methodology one needs to follow, or be able to think in certain ways in order to create these type queries? Or is the skill developed by trial and error over years of experience? Hopefully it is not completely the latter, since it seems logical to me that there are ways to analyze and build queries starting at the granular level perhaps and building on to that. Or maybe the inverse - from the general down to the granular. I'm not looking for an easy way out or a short cut to hard work, but simply the thinking process involved that would allow me to make the most efficient use of my time when attempting to develop queries like these. Is there anything written, a book, a guide, a tutorial, a SQL guru, etc. that anyone can recommend that provides a method overview, or of a conceptualized thinking process needed to develop these very complex SQL queries that seemingly only a select few in an IT department can create?

Thank you for your responses.

MLW