I did it last year for the first time. I knew how many words I had to write each day to stay on track, and I kept up by writing SOMEthing every day, no matter how hard it was. Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html) is an awesome application to use to actually do the writing. I finished with a few days to spare, and I am already excited about working on the next one...I guess you'd say I'm addicted. The cool part is, now I can say I'm "a novelist."