Well preparations are going well so far. I’ve done character sketches of my main protagonists, complete with photographs of them. Luckily Scrivener allows me to add these, so instead of writing detailed notes about hair and eye colour I can just look at the picture. I searched Google Images for a likeness which fitted what I see in my head and just dragged it into the note. (You don’t need Scrivener to do this, of course).
The next thing I thought about is location. My story is based in London and then on a remote island so I searched Google Earth for the area I envisioned and found places which could work in the story but none had what I really wanted. I did a hand drawn map of the Island, photographed it and dragged into my location research so I can refer back to it during the story. I also included a couple of pictures of London where my hero lives and works. I’ve then researched climate for the time of year as the weather also plays a part in my story.
Next I did some rough time line plotting and building an outline of events although these will change as the writing progresses; they always do. As a pantster I know I’ll go with flow as the writing takes over the story.
I’ve also, unusually, been asked to work for seven days during November, by the company I used to work for, so I need to build that into my daily word count. This was something which scuppered my first attempt, a few years ago. I began by just doing what was necessary but fell badly behind when other things intervened, causing me to abandon that attempt.
How are your preparations going?
My Write 
If your work days aren’t right at the beginning of the month, use that time to get ahead. I try to write three to four thousands words a day for the first two or three days. I’m always glad to have that cushion later in the month, when I’m beginning to fade. Also, try writing 2,000 words a day, or as much over the minimum as you can.
I’ve been “preparing” for this novel for two years, but very casually. Now I’m really delving into the characters and how they’re going to interact.