Interested in NaNoWriMo?

In case YOU are a WRITER and you've ever wondered what it would be like to sign up for NaNoWriMo, It is AWESOME! And if signing up feels this great to me, think about how much fun you're going to have beating your head/keyboard to a bloody/plasticy mess. I know, pretty cool thought, isn't it? ha ha.

Anyway, if you feel like killing yourself in November because of a zombie-like existence that somehow manages to make you feel like you're high in a good and a bad way at the same time, sign up. Here's what my welcome email said, in case you want to know more about it but are too afraid to commit to anything (as if they could literally force you to keep your commitment).

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After you've logged in, you'll have a chance to complete your Author Profile, and begin getting to know other participants in the NaNoWriMo forums. One quick thing: While filling out your profile on the site, it's important that you affiliate with a NaNoWriMo region, and then make that your Home Region. Many towns have Municipal Liaisons to organize NaNo write-ins and get-togethers in October and November, and affiliating with a region will automatically add you to the update list. Every region has a special message board called a Regional Lounge that becomes visible to affiliates of that region at the bottom of the Forums page.

To affiliate with a region, just sign in to the site, click the My Regions link in the left-hand menu. When you click that, you'll see three tabs. The Regions tab lets you affiliate with any of NaNoWriMo regions around the world. Once you've affiliated with your region (or regions---you can pick a bunch if you like), you should pick one of them to be your Home Region on that beautiful Home Region tab.

Picking a Home Region begins adding your word count to your region's cumulative tally, allowing you to do your part in crushing the spirits of NaNoWriMo authors in rival cities and towns.
To fill out your author profile, just click the "Edit Author Info" link and "Edit Novel Info" links from the My NaNoWriMo page. You upload your photo from the "Edit User Settings" link. Be sure to scroll down and hit "Submit" to save your changes.

On November 1, we'll unlock the novel-excerpt and word-count area of your author profile, so you can post your escalating word count, view your personal stats, and offer an excerpt of your work-in-progress to friends and fans.

Before you head off to begin training those typing fingers, we wanted to offer a few bits of advice. You'll find many great tips in the forums, and we'll be sending pep talks directly to your inbox during November. But for now, here's a quick overview of the three-and-a-half things we wish we had known for our first NaNoWriMo.

1) It's okay to not know what you're doing. Really. You've read a lot of novels, so you're completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do so. But it's also fine to just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you're not sure what that story might be right now.

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it's hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn't. Every book you've ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

3) Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

3.5) There will be times you'll want to quit during November. This is okay. Everyone who wins NaNoWriMo wanted to quit at some point in November. Stick it out. See it through. Week Two can be hard. Week Three is much better. Week Four will make you want to yodel.
And we're talking the good kind of yodeling here.