You can definitely do as zombie suggested - it's the fastest method. But the validator is available and I recommend that you try it at least once to check your word count against the official count that the validator will give you before Nov 25. Sometimes there are discrepancies - both lower and higher counts. The NNWM validator is the only official word count that counts so to speak ;-) So plan accordingly.
You can find it by clicking on "Edit Novel Info" which you can find as a selection on the drop down menu if you set your cursor over the "My NaNoWriMo" tab near the top of the page.
That will take you to your "Edit novel" page. On this page you should see a blue box with the label: "Word Count" and under the blue box it should say "I am ready to validate my novel (Winning begins November 25!)". If you roll you cursor over this sentence, you'll see that it becomes clickable. Click it and a new mini window comes up that's labeled "Word Count Validator" and "Paste your novel below"
This is where you paste a COPY of your novel - make sure that you have another copy of your work somewhere else because once the validator counts the words in your novel, it dumps all the text - nothing is saved except your validated word count. I can't emphasize this enough: the NNWM site does not save a copy of your novel - just the word count!
After you have pasted in a COPY of your work, click on the submit button. After the validator is done (and it's pretty quick), you'll see you're back on your "Edit novel" page but now the blue box will show your official word count.
But you're not done yet. You need to click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page. Now your updated word count will be associated with your NNWM account.
And to restate something that zombie already said: the validator only works as a word counter until November 25. After that, you can upload a copy of your novel and if you have that magic 50K, you will have officially won the NNWM chalenge.
I hope I covered everything here. Let us know if it works out ok!
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Date: 2012-11-02 06:05 pm (UTC)You can find it by clicking on "Edit Novel Info" which you can find as a selection on the drop down menu if you set your cursor over the "My NaNoWriMo" tab near the top of the page.
That will take you to your "Edit novel" page. On this page you should see a blue box with the label: "Word Count" and under the blue box it should say "I am ready to validate my novel (Winning begins November 25!)". If you roll you cursor over this sentence, you'll see that it becomes clickable. Click it and a new mini window comes up that's labeled "Word Count Validator" and "Paste your novel below"
This is where you paste a COPY of your novel - make sure that you have another copy of your work somewhere else because once the validator counts the words in your novel, it dumps all the text - nothing is saved except your validated word count. I can't emphasize this enough: the NNWM site does not save a copy of your novel - just the word count!
After you have pasted in a COPY of your work, click on the submit button. After the validator is done (and it's pretty quick), you'll see you're back on your "Edit novel" page but now the blue box will show your official word count.
But you're not done yet. You need to click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page. Now your updated word count will be associated with your NNWM account.
And to restate something that zombie already said: the validator only works as a word counter until November 25. After that, you can upload a copy of your novel and if you have that magic 50K, you will have officially won the NNWM chalenge.
I hope I covered everything here. Let us know if it works out ok!