To everyone who is hesitating:

I too thought NaNoWriMo's 50,000 word target was an insurmountably HUGE project but when I did the math it came out looking pretty do-able. Kat is right, 1,667 words per day on average. If your fingers can stumble out 30 words per minute, that's not even one whole hour per day. Yes, that assumes no time is spent pondering the next word. So the rule for success in NaNo-land is, write down EVERYTHING now, edit later. As for finding that hour per day, some options include:

1. Get someone else to walk the dog for the month.
2. Record your TV shows for the month.
3. Skip your TV shows for the month; they'll come again on re-runs and you won't get bum blisters from doing catch-up watching.
4. Suspend your reading/quilting/knitting/woodworking hobby for the month. The break will give you renewed vigour when you get back to it.
5. Batch cook now, eat from the freezer in November. Most people spend at least 1 or 2 hours per day preparing food and cleaning up afterwards. Portion-freeze your month's sandwich meat. Every minute spent typing instead of sniffing the cold meat to see if it's still good will get you another 30 words closer to the goal!
6. Put the autoreply on your e-mail saying you'll answer in the 1st week of December. (How many hours per day do you read and answer email? Just for a laugh, maybe I'll word-count a week of my sent e-mails, although I'm already weaning myself in preparation for Nov. 1st.)
7. Use all the above tips in the first week so you can binge-write your 50k. Use the rest of November to gloat in this thread, in between icing your carpal tunnels.

Does it still seem impossible? One can always write half this year, half next year. No, you won't qualify for a certificate. But who cares? Just over thirteen months from now you'll still have a first draft of your novel.

:-)