Newbie ; Character sheet vault

Little lost on this site and so far the tutorials and help has only confused me further for the most part... Wanted to get a few first level concepts written up and posted so that I could then edit their stats (depending on how they're done in any particular game) and levels etc to fit whatever game i'd be putting them in by following a progression tree I have written out already on paper. Am I understanding things right and I cant make a character sheet on here without making a game first (no where near confident enough in figuring out how this site works to try and run something yet~)? Either that or just provide my GM with all my character data and then they make me a sheet and I can then upload that sheet from that game (defeating the purpose of me pre-preping this stuff)?

You are correct. To create  character on an existing character sheet, you need access to a game with that character sheet set up on it. You can creat your own game a day set the character sheet you want on it, then join the game and create the character.  The only caveat to this is you might not be using the same sheet as the game you eventually join (DnD5e has 3 different sheets, for example). You also might not be able to transfer the character to the new game. The mechanism for that is called the Character Vault, and it has some restrictions on a free account. You can only transfer out of the Vault to a game created by a Plus or Pro subscriber, or one based on a select few modules from the marketplace.  Alternatively, you can create your character on the game you join once the GM has given you a character. 

Hmm, guess i'll talk to the person who was recruiting in person and see if they can have whoever is running then send me stuff in advance or provide me contact info so I can send them stuff on my thing so it can be done for it then.   Want to waste as little of the 4 hours they have for gaming as possible if I can help it since I know i'll probably be wasting a little bit of time familiarizing myself with the mechanics since i've never used this before... Guess i'll fumble through the tutorial etc again when I have time.