1) Sign up for the event by clicking the sign up link. This will register you as a NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program participant and create a basic author profile and account for you on our site.
2) Log on. Click on “Edit Profile” on the top of the screen, select "Author Info," and tell us about your writerly self. Add a photo and exciting info about you and your book-to-be.
3) Begin your novel-planning procrastination by reading through all the great advice and funny stories in the forums. Post some stories and questions of your own. Get excited. Get nervous. Get ready for the fiction-fueled escapade to come.
4) On November 1, begin writing your novel. Your goal is to write a novel by midnight, local time, on November 30.
5) This is not as scary as it sounds.
6) Starting November 1, we’ll add two new items to your author profile: a space for you to enter your cumulative word count for the month (done on the honor system), and a place for you to post an excerpt from your novel in progress (totally optional, totally encouraged).
7) Write like crazy for thirty days. If you reach your word-count goal by midnight, local time, November 30, you will be added to our hallowed Winner’s Page, and receive a handsome winner’s certificate and web icon. The adding of your name to the Honor Roll of Winners requires that you send in a version of your novel in text format (scrambled for security) to our site to be counted.
8) This is not as scary as it sounds either, and we'll post step-by-step instructions on how to upload your novel to our team of superpowered computational robots (flown in from Germany every year) starting in mid-November.
9) Win or lose, you rock for even trying. To make sure that you know that we know you rock, we give each and every National Novel Writing Month Young Writers Program participant a glorious certificate of honor from NaNoWriMo headquarters just for writing with us.
And that’s it! If you have any questions, just check out our General FAQs.
Best of luck in November!