The 5th Hurdle is... Letting go.

When you're deep into a project most writers experience a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. You want to be free of the project but now there's all the internal pressure to make it perfect before you release it into the world.

Of course It will never be perfect and what's really happening is you're protecting yourself against criticism, rejection, ridicule and failure by holding the project back and keeping it safely tucked away in your computer.

Solution #1: Have at least 3 trusted readers (ideally ones who haven't read earlier drafts) read your work and give you their opinion on if it's ready to go to agents/producers/publishers/etc. And that should be your question to them (i.e., the specific kind of notes you're asking for): is this ready to go out professionally or does it still need more work? And if it needs more work, what area(s)?

Once you're writing and the words start flowing, you can get totally carried away.

A little carried away is a great thing for creativity. Too much and you hit hurdle #4: Losing Perspective.

This is tricky because a crazy person doesn't know they're crazy, right?

So here are several ways you'll know when you've lost perspective -- and what to do about it:

#1: Your latest version of the material seems oddly familiar and you realize that you're re-written yourself in a circle and have arrived back at your original version of the material.