Jo, I'm just the head cheerleader, but I don't think you have to sign up for nano before you sign up here. You just need to sign up. As to your participating in your first year, speaking from experience, I wish I had this challenge when I did my first nano and I will be participating this year while cheering all of you along. You can sign up for this before you sign up for Nano, if I remember correctly from years past, but your going to want to get signed up for nano pretty quickly. One of the best parts of Nano is participating in the forums there. If your having a problem coming up with a plot idea or if you have to many "plot bunnies" and need to dump a few off on others, there is no better place.

I usually start chatting over there around the middle of October and don't stop until this thing is done. You can sign up any time of year. It just gets it out of the way so your ready to go when October and November get here. This will be my 8th year of doing nano and hopefully my 7th win. I lost that first year because I didn't have something like October Prep.

I for one will be looking forward to rooting for you. Be sure to let us know your username over there. I am going to make an attempt to add everyone that participates in October Prep to my nano friends list so I can keep cheer-leading all the way through.