That's okay, I was writing too. In fact, I finished my story! Just doing a read-through now for fixes.

On my gmail, on the left hand side there's a list of things like inbox, starred, important, chats, etc. At the bottom of that list there's a link that says "more". When I click that, I can see the gmail chat box that says "sign in to hangouts". I just sign in and voila.

Hotmail also works, whatever is easier for you!