NaNoWriMo: how does it work?

A few people have asked me how NaNoWriMo works, and since I didn't get into the specifics in my last post, I'll try to illuminate them here.

First off, you go to nanowrimo.org to create an account. It's free and only takes a few minutes. Once you've created your account, you have the option to fill out a profile about yourself, and to fill out a section on what your novel is about—the genre, title, a synopsis, and an excerpt (of course, you can leave these blank if you want). You can also upload a photo of yourself, although I haven't done so because all of my photos are too big and I'm too damn lazy to resize them.

The features I like the best on the website are the word count updater and the "stats" tab. You write your novel offline, in Word or Scrivener, or whatever other program you choose, but you can update the word count on your NaNo page at the end of the day (or as many times during the day as you like). Then, under the "stats" tab you can see lots of cool stuff like how close you are to where you should be, and what your average daily word count is:

Like on facebook, you can add friends, or writing buddies. That way you can keep tabs on their stats and word count, and they can keep tabs on yours. It's fun!

There are a lot of other fun things on the NaNo website, including forums where you can discuss everything from plotting to writing music to favorite distractions. Then there are all kinds of cool widgets and badges you can put on your blog, and cartoons ("NaNoToons"), and pep talks from famous and not-so-famous writers and authors. Oh, and there's a private message feature too ("NaNoMail").

Starting November 25th until the end of November 30th, if you've reached 50,000 words, you can upload your manuscript to the website for word count verification. Everyone who successfully does this is a winner! Hooray! Then you get listed on the winners page, and you get a super special winner's certificate.

And I guess that's about it. I haven't had time to play around much with the website's more fun features, since I've been constantly falling behind in my word count and having to catch up again, but it all seems pretty cool.

So! Have I tempted you to try NaNoWriMo next year? Or does it all just strike you as odd?