Kinda weird question:

Could you ask your students if there is a common place they seem to get that feeling of success seeming so distant?

For me, it's always 2/3-3/4 of the way through a script. Doesn't matter the content or the page count. It's always at this point in a script that I feel this. I also didn't notice this until I started writing more 1/2 hour comedies and noticed the place I was getting the dread feeling of how much I suck was 23-25 pages in. In features it was 77-90 pages in.

Curious if others have the same experience. If it's just a writer thing. Or maybe just certain sections where all seems lost in the pursuit of creativity.

I can't contribute anything more pertinent than this, from Neil Gaiman's “A week-three pep talk from Neil Gaiman”, 17 November 2007:

The last novel I wrote, when I got three-quarters of the way through, I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook, or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm—or even arguing with me—she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, “Oh, you’re at that part of the book, are you?”
I was shocked. “You mean I’ve done this before?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Not really.”
“Oh yes”, she said. “You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients.”
I didn’t even get to feel unique in my despair.
So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.
One word after another.

Maybe not insprirational, but before I start the actual writing - when I'm overwhelmed by the process and the 100+ pages in front of me - I accept the fact that the whole thing is a bunch of small parts.

So each scene is like a project, and it may take a day or two to finish it depending on how much time you have.

But when each scene is done you've accomplished something. One day you reach the end. And then you think...wow, now I have to go back to the beginning again.

But ever since I've started doing outlines I don't get lost in the writing of the script itself. That's the easy part. Now, I get lost in the outline. :)

Thank you, Scott, for this post, and you too, Wolf Lahti, what a great story from Gaiman. "[I]magining that my story already exists" only thing that keeps me going. I see a huge multicolor marble, beautiful, deep, I know there's a potent, moving story in there, utterly certain, less certain is my ability to pull it out. But one word after another, only way anything will happen.

Thinking that the story's already there is quite comforting. But, it can also be sort of a trap. You get an idea and it's not really satisfying but you might think: "Well, it's already there, right? So it must be part of your story." And you go with it not questioning it. And then at one point you have to realize that it can't be part of your story because nothing works or fits together. So you have to go back and find a different approach.

But, then you might think, story's there and you just went down the wrong path to get to it. It's like it was in the center of a maze. And you are taking a series of wrong turns until you reach it. You must backtrack a couple of times but that can be part of the fun. It's not fun when it's easy as pie. I'm just discovering that part of the process: Seeing that it really is fun to figure out what might be already there.

Persist.

You are Andy Dufresne and all you have is a rock hammer.

With each stroke, you get a little closer to your destination.

It won't be easy. There will be doubts and distractions and frustrations and you'll have to swim through a lot of shit to get where you going...

But the beach in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, awaits.

Now get hammerin'.