Do you remember the tagline from those old public service announcements “The More You Know?”

Well, that phrase is what flashed through my mind when I discovered something about my writing process. Here’s what happened…

I started tracking my writing…

Keeping track of my word count is something I only recently started doing. I wanted to get a gauge on my personal writing speed (for many reasons that I’ll go into at some point, but not today.)

As I started working on my current work in progress I hit a wall. So, I thought it might be a good idea to take a break and work on another story that I had begun.

When I opened it up, I checked the word count.

Here’s what I discovered.

• Current WIP – 12,700 words
• Old WIP – 12,344 words

Hmm…

Seems that, for some reason, I am getting stuck at around 12,000 or so words in. Maybe it’s at this point in my story where the “critical voice” downed a massive amount of energy drinks—maybe an entire carton, who knows—and the harpy had the nerve to try to shut me down!

Not gonna happen.

So then, what else could be going on?

Theory #1

Both stories are speculative fiction.

The average book length in this genre is supposedly anywhere from 90,000 to 125,000 words. When you do the math (following the Save the Cat method), this means that at nearly 13,000 words I’m in the 10-20% range, a/k/a the Debate which is at the end of Act 1. (90,000 x 14% = 12,600 words)

The storyline does seem to track with the story beats so far. But given that all I’ve published to this point is short stories, I’ve no idea if this story will reach that length. Need more data.

Theory #2

I need to change my process.

I’m a baby when it comes to writing fiction, and I also write into the dark a/k/a “write without an outline.” So that could be the reason why I struggle to push through that barrier.

Trust me, I’ve tried writing outlines, but once I’ve done them, detailed or not, I don’t want to mess with the story ever again. Sigh.

Just write the next sentence.

Theory #3

I’m just full of it. I need to push through as I have been doing and go from there…

Ima go with this one, Bob!

What about you? Do you track your progress and have you discovered something interesting when you do?