In Honor of NaNoWriMo: 5 Books That Definitely Were Not Written in a Month

Is this email not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser](. [Shmoop University Inc.]( Hi Shmoopers, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, for those in the know. Here at Shmoop HQ, we keep trying to hit the 50,000-word mark, but year after year we come up short. To make ourselves feel better (and to procrastinate on the whole novel-writing thing), we came up with a list of books we're absolutely sure were not written in a month. 5 Books That Definitely Were Not Written in a Month 1. Moby-Dick You saw this one coming. But it's true: we bet [Melville]( couldn't have even written the [cetology chapter]( in a month. . Ulysses There are sentences in [this book]( that took longer than a month to write. And to read, for that matter. 3. Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand was no [Hemingway](. And [Atlas Shrugged]( is atlas-lengthed. 4. Clarissa [Clarissa]( is the ultimate soap opera (except, you know, from the 18th century). And just like how every soap opera is on the air for what feels like centuries, Clarissa also goes on forever—it's one doorstop of a novel. 5. War and Peace Maybe if Tolstoy had done War or Peace, he could've put it together in a month, but [both]( Not a chance. Maybe we'll try a short story this year. Novel idea, right? --------------------------------------------------------------- Quote of the Week "Call me Ishmael." ~ [Moby-Dick]( Such a short opener for such a long book. Copyright © 2017 Shmoop University Inc., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you registered as a user with good ol' Shmoop. Our mailing address is: Shmoop University Inc. P.O. Box 0935Los Altos, CA 94023 [Add us to your address book](//shmoop.us7.list-manage.com/vcard?u=373fbcef003d1c710e10416c5&id=affa322785) This email was sent by Shmoop. [Unsubscribe]( | [Update Preferences](