Unfortunately, I’m going to have to leave this post a little on the shorter side since the topic was posted relatively late this time. I didn’t even see them until I was already at work, and don’t have a ton of time this evening! I’ve always been vaguely interested in NaNoWriMo (although I naturally tend to type Nanaimo as in Nanaimo bars instead) since it seems like such a cool idea. For those who haven’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it is an international creative writing event that takes place each year encouraging writers to try and write a 50,000 word book within the month of November. When I was younger, it was my dream job to be a published author and I absolutely loved to write. I just never had the follow-through to actually continue any of the story ideas that I started and most of them were quickly abandoned. I’d usually get stuck fairly early on and put it away for a while to try and figure out a direction to take it, and ended up never going back. I’ve never really paid much attention to which books came out of NaNoWriMo, so it was interesting to take a look!
Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.
1) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – I was especially surprised by this one since it is such an intricate novel, and it seemed a bit hard to believe that it could be written in just the span of one month. My understanding is that the goal of the month is to just get a first draft though, and there is still plenty of time for edits afterwards, so it may not be as unbelievable as I thought.
2) Cinder, Scarlet and Cress by Marissa Meyer – Possibly even more impressive than something as complex as The Night Circus is the fact that all three of these books were written in a single month! Based on several different articles that I saw, Marissa Meyer drafted all three of these books, as well as Heartless and the Lunar Chronicles spin-off Fairest all during November 2008. Glad to see she didn’t suffer from the same problem with following through that I did!
3) Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell – I was a bit surprised to see this book on the list since I thought NaNoWriMo was mostly for brand new authors, and Rainbow Rowell already had two published books by the time Fangirl came out. From what I’ve read about her participation in it, she was skeptical about the whole idea of NaNoWriMo before she tried it herself, but changed her mind after drafting Fangirl because of how different the experience was for her than her usual writing process. I’m definitely glad she participated since this book is one of my favourites!
4) On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis – I haven’t read this book yet, but it is high on my list to pick up in 2021! I had no idea that it originated during NaNoWriMo. Most of the time, when I hear about this book it is in the context of Corinne Duyvis being the originator of the term “own voices” to refer to authors from marginalized groups writing characters with whom they share a marginalized identity. The majority of this book was written during NaNoWriMo 2013, and I can’t wait to finally give it a chance.
5) Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy – This book has been on my TBR for way too long, and it was another one that I was a bit surprised to see had come out of NaNoWriMo. This book is Julie Murphy’s first published novel and it was also her first time participating in the challenge. I’ve only read Dumplin’ so far, but I’ve been looking forward to trying more of Julie Murphy’s books. Considering this one has been sitting on my TBR since 2015, I think it’s about time I pick it up!
Abyssal Librarian 