How long did it take you to finish your first novel?

To me, 'finishing' a book means how long it takes me to write the first draft. After that, all that's required is tweakage. I know the same applies to others, even those who write fast. So I disagree that a grain of salt is needed. If someone says they can write a book in a few weeks, I believe them...because I've done it too.

It usually takes me about 45-60 days to finish a first draft (maybe 60k-80k words)...revision is another question completely. The book I'm currently revising was "finished" three years ago, but it definitely isn't ready for public consumption, because I left it sit until very recently.

I think it also depends on what kind of work-for-money schedule folks are on...I know I get more done when I'm at 30hrs/wk or less.

It took me about 7 months to do a first draft. But I think that's kind of a meaningless number. People who write professionally can devote 8 to 12 hours a day to writing, while those of us who are caring for small children can only grab an hour a day, sometimes even less than that. (Sometimes I sit down to write at the end of the day and just fall asleep sitting there). So how long it takes you to finish a novel depends a lot on how motivated you are, how much time you can devote to it, and how much energy you have remaining after all your other daily tasks are complete. If I had even one full day a week that I could devote to just writing, I'm pretty sure I could turn out a novel every couple of months.

I wrote the first draft to my first story in about 2 months (it's YA, so ~50k). I had no idea what I was doing, honestly. I just wrote furiously because the premise was so near and dear to my heart it was almost like therapy. After the first draft was done, I put it in a drawer, unfinished/polished, for 2.5 years. I pulled it out yesterday to finally complete the thing, which shouldn't take more than a couple months now that I actually sort of know what I'm doing. So I guess you could call it ~3 years, or ~3-4 months of actual writing time.

GiddyUpGo said:

It took me about 7 months to do a first draft. But I think that's kind of a meaningless number. People who write professionally can devote 8 to 12 hours a day to writing, while those of us who are caring for small children can only grab an hour a day, sometimes even less than that. (Sometimes I sit down to write at the end of the day and just fall asleep sitting there). So how long it takes you to finish a novel depends a lot on how motivated you are, how much time you can devote to it, and how much energy you have remaining after all your other daily tasks are complete. If I had even one full day a week that I could devote to just writing, I'm pretty sure I could turn out a novel every couple of months.

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This.

But I'd argue motivation negates time. (At least in my case.)

I wrote two different 95k first drafts while I was a full-time graduate student, writing my thesis, doing labwork for my thesis, teaching 4 labs a week, and also working a p/t job. Each draft took about ~4 months to complete.

My personality is, um...somewhat sloth-like? (I'm into self-flattery, obvi.) If I don't have structure I'll never get a damn thing done. I'm an instructor at a university starting this coming fall semester, so my summer has been completely empty--prime writing time. Only now that I'm not running around like a chicken with no head, I've gotten basically nothing done. No structure = me putting things off until tomorrow, whereas when I'm crazy busy and have virtually no free time, I can say, 'okay, I've got 20 minutes here--GO!' And it works for me.

Personality & motivation are huge. It's why cyborgs people like scarletpeaches and Jamesaritchie CAN crank out polished novels in like 2.363457 days.

About 6 months for a first draft, then more to edit. Both right afterwards, and then months later (for 2 or 3 more months).

I started writing again after a series of events led me to it. I used to write a lot when I was younger, but life got in the way.

I was laid off from my job in May 2009. I took an (already planned) trip to New York State in June, driving from Milwaukee to Ithaca and the surrounding area to meet with cousins for my genealogy. I love it there, since I had visited once back in 2006, and I was seriously inspired by the place on this visit.

While I was there, at the library doing research for family stuff, I stumbled across a story in the old newspaper microfilm. I printed it because I thought it would make a great novel. When I got back to Wisconsin, I started it. Since I wasn't working, I had lots of time between job interviews and filing for unemployment. But it sucked, seriously. And I had no idea what I was doing at first.

When job-hunting proved fruitless, my husband and I made the decision to move back to his home country, Canada. I was living out in the sticks with my in-laws, and couldn't work yet, so what ELSE did I have to do? My husband started bringing me into town with him every day when he went to work, so for the first four or five hours of every day, I sat at Starbucks and worked on it. And I got much better. I had beta readers who loved it, and told me not to quit.

So wrote from about June of 2009 to June of 2010, then I set it aside and worked on something else. Then edited it some more for about 2 or 3 more months, I think.

After the long struggle to find an agent, and realizing it wouldn't happen, I submitted to Musa a few months ago, and it will be coming out soon (no date yet)!

My first "novel" took a few months to write. Not very long. It was barely novel-length and it sucks, but I was just determined to finish it. It was a writing exercise. It's posted on my blog and is still untitled.

Just under two years. But there's a history to that.

I wrote 99% of it in 6 months, including starting to edit. What killed me were my final 3 chapters (which started out as one, and ended as 3 when finished - caveat emptor - the three have the length of one!) and now I'm deep in cutting and hacking it all to shreds.

So finished is subjective. So's discipline

GiantRampagingPencil said:

I love you, ralf58.

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Me three!

A few summers ago I wrote 50,000 words of a novel, but never finished it. Now I'm working on a different novel with the hopes that it might go a bit better.

I'll let you know when I know...

Seriously though, 16,000 words in, figure to be about 100,000 when done. Hoping to have first draft in the can before the start of the winter Olympics.

Well, I'll let you know when I finish one. But my mother started hers when she was like 18 and shes still doing fixes on it. She turned shes now over 60.

I never finished my first novel. I was stupid and trunked it at about 20k, because I knew it was amatuerishly bad. My current novel is at about 30k. It's taken me about a year, mostly do to it being difficult to keep writing at a decent pace while going to college and working. It's been well worth it.

I co-author with my husband. We had the novel drafted, revised, and to the publisher in eight or nine months. I think if we didn't have each other to harass, it would have been much slower though.

The first book took a while - I was pratting about not taking it seriously, and I was il a fair bit too. (ME)

Book 2 took 8 months. Everything thereafter has taken less than 6. I did an 80k draft in 6 weeks once and yes I have job, even if it is part-almost-full time), and I still think that's the best I have ever written. That book just ....had to be written that quick because it fell out of me. Other books do not

How fast isn't the issue though - some write faster than others for all sorts of reasons. Result is what counts.

First book that's in my sig - 15 months for the first drafts, lots of waiting around and wibbling while it went through the open door process, and another 3 months of a hefty edit and revision, where I basically rewrote half of it.

2nd book is taking less time, but still a bit longer than I'd like. I started in April and I'm at 76k/105ish. But I'm also 10k into another project. I'm bouncing around between them when I get stuck.

My first finished draft took me about 3 months - 80,000ish words. I spent another three trying to edit that mess into something readable. Never really got there...

Second attempt moved a little quicker, about six weeks for a workable first draft. Although, I have a third that's been slowly, (oh so slowly) making it's way to the finish line over about a year or so.

For me getting a first draft isn't much of a problem. It's the editing that takes a long, long time.

My first one took me the better part of a year. I'm working on the second one now and it's probably taken three to four months of serious effort to reach the halfway point, but I'm developing better habits as I go so the first draft should hopefully be done within a couple of months.

I [seriously] started the one I'm working on now on 01-03-2008 and have been working progressively, almost every day since then. I've rewritten it more times than I can count. However, everything I have now I am quite happy with. Another four years and maybe I'll be done!

It took me four years on the first draft, but the rewrites have been much quicker...like six in the past three months.
I think it was just the timing because it seems that once I finished the first one the others are so much easier.