What was I thinking???

It just NOW occurred to me that I should have been working as a rebel to get my master's projects done! Had I done that, I'd be finished with them and would have not felt all trapped during the novel writing in November and free now--when I actually have the chance to truly immerse myself in the novel and not just fart around for 50k...

Logic eludes me sometimes.

writing 50,000 words of an academic writing in a month would've been very tough, probably almost impossible. Writing 500 academic words is sometimes harder than writing 2000 words of novel a day. I think you chose right to get on with writing a novel because:

a) now you know you can write a novel at high speed even when you have other major things going on in your life
b) novel writing probably gave you a nice break from your project
c) which would provide you with importanct objective view of your project work
d) it's clearly now made you have a bigger urge to get on with your master's project
e) you thoroughly enjoyed your November
f) now if you get stuck with your project, you can say to yourself 'well, if I can write 50k in a month, I can totally do this'

:)

It's not impossible to use Nano to finish academic projects... I'm working on finishing my first draft of my PhD thesis, and it's been going really well. I've slowed down because I've had to edit as well as write, but it's possible. Robini, maybe you should challenge yourself, or find a group to work out a challenge with, for Dec. or Jan. It can be really really great to work towards a time-oriented academic goal, rather than a quality-oriented one, especially for early drafts. Good luck!