All you need to to is join the community with a character journal and you can start posting right away, as long as your character doesn't violate the rules. If you don't have a character journal, start one by going to Livejournal's account creation page. It's not mandatory to join the OOC community, but that's generally where announcements from mods and other players are made, so it's recommended. It's also not mandatory to have any information on your character journal or this wiki, but add it anyway to help the other players understand your character so we can interact better.