Oh, now, there's a thought! Do NaNoWriMo here on KofK, in the writing section, a little bit of story at a time and in the meanwhile here you are on KofK too....

I might try that, if I can come up with a simple outline/idea in this next day or two.

That's a good thought. Even if you do a little at a time, it will add up.

I reached my first writers block yesterday.

This will be my fifth year. I have won at the last minute for most of those years. My goal for this year is to not spend the last 24-48 hours furiously typing away, hoping to get the last, however many words I need, typed out and validated by midnight on the 30th.
I am currently putting NaNo on hold though in an attempt to get the Halloween Knuffel.

Oh, good luck with both of those goals!

(I'm impressed you manage to actually produce a lot of words under deadline like that. Deadlines are usually when my flow dries up)

On certain things, I thrive under pressure. The only problem is, in the last 48 hours, most of what I write ends up getting cut because I end up typing whatever comes into my head. The good thing about rambling though is that even though you have to get rid of most of what you've written, you end up with a ton of potential gems that just need a little polish.

My recommendation to all those doing NaNo and need inspiration, try the Twitter Word Sprints or go to the Word Wars, Prompts and Sprints forum on the site. There are a bunch of challenges, word crawls and other things to increase your word count.

So is there an organized December editing group at all, for after all those words are written and they need to be polished?

There is a Now What? Event in January and February but most people edit in their own time... if they edit them at all.
Some people also end up publishing their work which is amazing! (I think I've actually read some books when I was at school written by Wrimos.)

Wow, that's some serious follow-through!

I don't actually want to be a writer, but it's appealing anyhow just for the sake of having done something on that scale. I wonder what the percentage is, among participants, of people who are actively trying to become writers on a professional level.

I think most of us have the goal of publishing something someday, but I know most of my Region are aware that even if you publish something, it doesn't make you a professional. (our ML has a book published and she still has to work like the rest of us)
I think a lot of people just use NaNo as practice to get in the habit of writing every day.

That's a lot of English teachers somewhere along the line in peoples' histories... probably all of them happy to see the skills being used.