Well, I signed on as sheilah, which is my nick here and on zoom's boards. I'm working on an original novel which I only have the vaguest idea of where it's going, so I guess I'll find out next month.
Although this is the first year I've signed up for NaNoWriMo, I actually had to write at that pace (1670 words/day) for two weeks when I was writing Without a Trace two years ago, and I was working fulltime for over half of it. What I discovered is that the words began to flow at 2 or 3 times my normal pace. As one of the world's slowest writers, I usually average 250 words/hour, but under the gun like that, I was consistently producing 500-750 words/hour, so instead of taking me almost 7 hours a day, it took between 2 and 3. And I could only count words that I kept for the final draft, which I don't have to worry about this time, so I should be able to write even faster.
When the writer of the 5 or 6 steps article mentions something that is even before a first draft, s/he is referring to "free writing," which is what a NaNoWriMo novel actually is, a totally unedited sort of stream-of-consciousness flow.
To do it, set a timer for 10 minutes, turn off your computer monitor, and start typing
without stopping, without correcting, just pouring what's in your head onto paper. When the timer goes off, set it again, turn the monitor back on, and clean up some of the garbage on the screen. You'll have to get rid of those places where you typed "I don't know what to do now," or those long strings of "and and and and and" that occurred when your brain stalled momentarily.
But if you do alternating 10 minute bursts of free writing and editing, you'll find that 2000 words/day isn't that impossible to achieve. It also lets you use short periods of time (a fifteen minute break am and pm, time left over after eating lunch before you're due back at work, etc.) instead of thinking you can only work when you have plenty of time.
I haven't signed up any friends yet, but I'll get to it. Will you open a thread in this forum, too, jojo?
BTW, the guy who originated NaNoWriMo, wrote a book entitled, "No Plot? No Problem!" because he did it the first year without even an idea of what he was going to write about, and he discovered what the plot was over the course of the month. However, I've done a lot of pre-planning already in the form of character development and world building, and I know where I want my plot to go--just not how to get there. I guess I'll find out next month.
