Getting Started

Excited about the upcoming month of words and craziness? If you are, there are a couple of signups for you to do. The NaNo one is easier to do now - the closer we get to the end of the month, the busier the servers tend to get.

The your NaNo account is the core that this whole event spins around. To get yours ready, go to the site and click "sign up now!" at top of main NaNo page. Choose a username and enter you email address, check the three check boxes at the bottom, and press the create new account button.

Wait for the email, then use the temporary password to login the first time. You should go to User Settings and enter a new permanent password, and upload a 100x100 picture and set your timezone while you are at it. You can also set your age and location and such things on Author Info. On the Novel Info tab, you can set the title and genre of your NaNo novel, plus give a short synopsis and except (but only after November first, you cheater!), and even an image to be the cover art, if you are artistically talented.

Now, you should go to My Regions in the side menu, click the Regions tab and scroll down to "Canada :: Ontario :: Ottawa" and click join. If you are new to Ottawa, you can also set a second (or more!) region by scrolling down to and clicking Join again. Then click on the Home Region tab, choose Ottawa, and click Set Home Region so that your word count is added to the regional wordcount, where it bring honour and glory to Ottawa!

Head on over to the forums from the top menu. Say hi in the Ottawa Regional Forum, or drop by one of the Genre Lounges, and browse around to see what looks interesting. And finally, since this is all non-profit and donation-funded, you might want to head to the Office of Letters and Light store and donate. Or buy something. Or both!

Secondly, you should sign up for an account on this blog. I figure since we'll only have a small group of people participating it will be easier to set the blog to members only to avoid spam comments. On the right-hand menu of the blog, click the big "Follow" button under the Participants header. You can log in with your Google account (same as your Gmail login, if you have that), you AIM login, your Yahoo account, or any Netlog or OpenID account.

And now the fun part! Start thinking about what you'd like to write for NaNo. Maybe you have that one great idea that's been at the back of your head for ages, but you've never gotten around to writing. Maybe you recently read something and thought, "I could do that better". Or maybe you just feel that the world needs just a little bit more anthropomorphic wombat murder mystery in it. Whatever you want!

The only real restrictions are that it has to be a) 50k long, b) a novel or something closely resembling it, c) written by you, d) started no earlier than midnight o' one on November first. Or, you know, none of those things. It's not like there's any prize other than the joy of having written, so there's no really incentive to cheat. It's not like you can be disqualified. Of course, if you do cheat, then you are a terrible person and you will get no ice cream in the afterlife. Only frozen yogurt, for the rest of forever and ever.

So do it right, eh?