.. any of which I hereby authorize you to follow or modify without any guilt whatsoever, just in case you need someone to say that to you :) 1) Stop. Forget about it. Pat yourself on the back every time you read LJs from those of us stressing about it. 2) What Dave said: Keep writing. Do what you can, and don't worry about word count or deadline. 3) What Grey said. Make it your goal to thoroughly outline your novel this month; LJ entries will give you ideas of what kind of planning will be truly helpful. This may work for you, since I notice that most of the busy-ness you mention is time-intensive rather than thought-intensive. Spend your workouts at the gym pondering, and 15 minutes when you can spare them making notes. I also definitely with NaNo was a different month... March, maybe.