Pacing and Pacing

I had an axiety dream, one of those unkillable monsters that reproduces rapidly and you have to kill all the offspring too, OR ELSE it will devour the world. I've had this dream before.

I did win. I set fire to the house (not mine) and burnt down two or three. There were casualties, but I knew it was better that they die in fire than the monster get them. YECH!

Back to pacing. This is NOT something I speak well about, more like "you know bad pacing when you see it." Keep your action sentences quick and active, paragraphs short. Don't repeat long scenes or paragraphs. That's my advice, you need someone who has studied this to tell you more about technique. I took a seminar once on pacing and it was long and boring so I prompty forgot much of what the teacher said.

Pacing yourself and your work. I know Catie Murphy has a 20 page a day book challenge on. Hi, Catie! I can do 20 pages on a good day if I kill myself and do NOTHING else but write (and can you believe I spelled that 'right'?) I might have taken her up on the challenge, but I'm still recovering from a huge push and the house needs cleaning.

I've found that 10 pages (2500 words) is hard but doable, and 5 pages I can make even if I drag myself to the keyboard later at night.

And I've found myself pacing myself. I'm not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. I reach my word count, either push more for a rounder figure (2000 if I'm at 1925), and I usually finish a scene and get into another so there's a place for me to pick up the next day. On the one hand this is not working the hardest I can, on the other hand, I'm not burning myself out. So right now I'm sticking to pacing myself and a slower pace. I can see in the future that the rougher pace may be coming.

Oh, and btw, my hero has been pacing a lot, too. ;)

May the pace of your writing day, whatever it is, please you today.
Robin