Slow Down -- and Speed Up!

Is there a way to balance productivity and quality? When I read what I've written so far, it has a hurried quality to it. (Like all my blog posts.) I have a lot to do. I must hurry. Faster, faster, faster.

While that is all true (and I feel like a first draft is good enough for a blog post because that's all I have time for), I'm making a mistake with my novel. I may not have time right this minute while I'm working on my novel to churn out a chapter, I do have time to truly get into the scene and the character. Walter Wetherell (W. D. Wetherell) once told me to spend more time in my scenes and not hurry on so much. That's exactly what I'm not doing.

It's harder to add in things later. It's easier to cut than to add. I need to slow down. Not spend less time, not produce fewer pages. I need to slow down while I'm writing. I might be in a hurry because time is so precious, but the words are even more so. If it takes me several months longer to get my first draft completed, that's okay.

So, having decided that I need to slow down, what have I done? Why, signed up for Nanowrimo, which starts Thursday.

I feel like I've decided to slow down -- and speed up. That makes no sense. So how I'm trying to use it is to slow down because I'm going to spend more time working, which will coincidentally result in 50,000 words by November 30. If I feel I am killing myself or my novel, I am allowed to jump ship but not allowed to stop writing.  Anybody else done it or going to do it?