Nanowrimo muscle building

Hi there, not content to let my fingers bleed after reaching my minimum wordcount (a 1667 daily, calculated for a month end Nanowrimo goal of 50K words), I thought I'd share a few thoughts with you. Often one of these guys can't be seen directly, and lets its presence be known only by the shadow it casts. With enough views of the darkness on the light of my psyche's interior, its full form can be ascertained. Then, it's caught by its scrawny feet before it flaps away.

Here's the thought. There are times when the pace needs to be deliberately dropped to let the reader regroup and to act as bedrock to gradually ratchet up the tension. I'm thinking particularly of episodes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where the story goes a little flat and sparse- for me anyway - yet the pacing wonderfully shows Harry and his friends stripped of everything and in a back-to-basics form. Almost like Jesus in the desert. It has that biblical vibe.

After outlining a number of key characters and defining the world and its tone, I've recently completed the inciting incident. I feel a little conflicted. The creative part of me wants to spit out more interesting things to keep my juices going, yet I know that I have to keep my writing as neutral as possible to put some distance between the excitement of the incident and the build up, and also to prevent myself from over-egging the pudding by inserting elements that can skew the main story arc. I also know that my characters would ned a breather after going through all the stress I've put them through. My story reflects their need. And furthermore, if the level of detail is continued, the story will become too dense. It's just difficult purposefully treading water. To add substance for the reader, I've got the main character reflecting on past events.

Here's a second thought. It's a logistical issue. Here goes. There are times when an event is described in the narrative. We as readers go through the events with the characters, and then late this event is related to some other character who wasn't there, in dialogue. The difficulty is one of how to do it. We've all seen the writer write something along the lines of 'x told y what had happened at z', this seems to me to be a missed opportunity to add some shading onto the particular character' perception of events and /or to explore the motivation behind a particular retelling. Inevitably some one-to-oone mapping of what the reader already knows must be endured. The art is to reframe it so it is still interesting.

Well, in practical terms, I'm on day 11 and do feel that I've developed my chops. The last couple of days were a bit difficult. I'll explain why. On Monday night our doorbell rang and our elderly next door neighbour informed us she'd fallen into our garden. This was from the footpath two feet above. She'd actually laid there for a while, shouting. We didn't hear her as we were all in the back room. We brought her inside and asked our nurse neighbour on the other side if she'd check her over. She couldn't see anything obvious. We dialled 111 and the injured neighbour was eventually seen by paramedics and taken to hospital. Because of the long waiting times I said I'd bring her back if it turned into a late night affair. I got into bed at 1.30 am. For some that's probably normal, but it wiped out my concentration. Like skittles on a full strike. Now, with routine re-established and sleep in the bag, I'm motoring again. Enough to tread water until the tension builds up. No, scrub that. Until I build the tension up. I'm the god that decides what does on in this miniature universe. I hope I act responsibly.