The Longest It's Ever Taken You to Write a Novel

The longest it ever took me was 50 days. I use outlines, so I've got a good idea what will happen before I ever type the first word.

I just type a minimum of 1000 words a day. If I go over, great. If not, still got work done. On my most difficult days, it can take me anywhere between 2-3 hours.

The key, as with all things, is to never give up! We can't all churn out novels as fast as King or Sanderson.

Hugs. I'm nearly 50. I've started dozens of stories over the last 27 years, and finished 8 original stories, and 5 of 7 novels. 1 novel has been published by a commercial e-publishers. I've sold three short stories to paying markets. I hope to finish at least 3 novels this year.

To be fair, I've done a lot of other things in the meantime.

The first time I put pen to paper to write "Untitled Fantasy #1" was December 2013. I'm still working on the first few chapters of that story today soooo...yeah. It's going to be awhile before I finish.

I'll admit there were many times last year when I got frustrated with myself for not being able to write faster, but writing is my hobby, not my career, and with everything else I have to do, (namely college) I don't always have as much time as I would like to dedicate to my writing. I've FINALLY worked out a way to set aside time to write every day, though. And even if I only have time to write a paragraph or sometime just a sentence a day, progress is progress.

Miss Strawberrii said:

My whole life! I still haven't finished one, and now I'm really sad about it--thinking of how I'm getting closer to 30 and haven't done so. ;_;

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I don't think people are being fair to themselves when they start saying "I'm [enter age here] and I still haven't [enter writing goal here]." Different people start writing at different ages and everyone writes with different methods and at different rates. That's Ok. The world isn't going to end if you reach 30 and still haven't finished a novel. Just keep trying, keep writing, and little by little you will get there. Don't give up!

I think it took me close to four months. But...that was because I could afford to spend full time on it without pause for anything.

tri

I just posted about a novel I wrote twenty years ago that I've decided to do another draft of. I'm a little bit afraid to re-read it!

The longest I've ever worked on a story was ten years and it was a novella that I eventually self published. I loved that story, the character, the whole thing, and I wanted it to be perfect. And now it's the story I'm most proud of.

But the longest I've spent on a novel is three years (I did have chemo treatments and was horribly sick in there, though, so I don't count one of the years). I never sold that book but it got me an agent.

Mostly it takes me two years to write a book. They are quite long at 130k and I have four kids and a design business, but I also want the piece to be right.

The shortest amount of time I've taken was six months.

And I'm now writing on a deadline of six months for a series, so I needed to speed up my process. You always need to be flexible and get your abilities to the point where you can stretch them. But if you can spend the time to create the perfect world, the perfect story, then take it!

I do have to say, though, that working on many many book-length stories over the years has been a great learning experience for me. When I started writing people always said, Well, you'll never sell your first book (which upset me to no end, because I loved that thing). In my case they were sadly right, but many of my friends sold their first manuscripts so it's not true of everyone. I, however, needed to keep going because it wasn't until my seventh manuscript that I sold.

I'm 2 years and 2 months into my first novel. Checking over my proof before hitting the publish button. I'm hoping the next book will be done in a shorter time, but we'll see.

Ten years. From short comic book to a dozen of revise. Writing is like climbing up a mountain. Just started another revise on my novel too.

I've been working on my epic fantasy on and off for 2 years. As for writing a draft, the longest it took me was 54 days. It was the one time I didn't have an outline.

Miss Strawberrii said:

I have time too! I think depression just tells me no! Evil thing! ><

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Story of my life, Strawberrii!!!

I've been working on the first draft of my current project for nearly two years now. About a month ago, I got to the end of what I outlined -- I thought it would clear 50,000 words, but it's not even close, only 33,000. So now I'm combining some ideas I had for a continuation of the original into the draft to make it longer and bring it up to the level of a novel. I really want to get to the point where I can rewrite/edit it, because I find those parts of writing to be more rewarding than the original draft writing. This is the longest I've worked on one project. (Granted, not continuously, but it's always been in my thoughts somewhere.) I love it, though! I'm devoted to finishing a novel length draft of this story and then reworking it, no matter how long it takes.

I'll let you know when I'm done #3

There's a book I've been writing for twenty years... but not continuously for twenty years. I put it aside for years at a time to work on other things. I think it's a story that demands writing abilities that were beyond my skill set when I started it. Every time I go back to it, I write a draft that's stronger than the last. One of these times, I will have learned enough from working on other things to be able to do it justice.