The WDC NanoLounge

Hi, Julie,

Welcome to NaNoWriMo!

For your first question, you don't need to sign up for NaNo on WDC. There's not one official NaNoWriMo group or anything. This forum is the official forum set up by WDC for us to talk about NaNoWriMo. There are member-run groups and activities that you can join if you want to to help you on your NaNo journey. But there's not anything else you need to do. You're all set to go.

If you want to, you can create an item in your portfolio for your NaNo novel, but that is not required. A lot of people do, but I never have. It all depends on your own preference. If you wish, you can even include your NaNo item in your NanoCounter. Just click on your wordcount (which is "1" by default) and you can both update your wordcount throughout the month and put the item number for your Nano item.

For the counter on WDC, and for the counter on the NaNoWriMo website, you update your wordcount manually. I've mentioned how to do that in the above paragraph for the WDC counter. For the nanowrimo.org counter, you won't be allowed to update it until November 1. The website was redone this year, so I can't be positive about how things are going to work, but the past two years I've done Nano, a little box for updating my wordcount has appeared once NaNoWriMo started, just at the top of the page close to my username.

Hope this helps!

-Mariah :)