How long did it take you to write your novel?

EmmChris · #1 06-23-2010, 06:12 AM

I'm curious how long it took people to write their novels and how long they ended up in word count.

I'm currently 40K words in, averaging about 1000 words a day (though my week-long father's day preparations set me back)

B. Milliken · #2 06-23-2010, 07:04 AM

I wrote about 92,000 words in 6 months. By the time I'm finished editing/reworking, I'll have another 6 months invested.

Redlorry · #3 06-23-2010, 07:56 AM

I wrote 84,000 words between October 2009 and March 2010, editing as I went along.

My first novel, which will never see the light of day and is really just a little fantasy for me to get lost in when the mood takes me has been written two and a half times. Once in first person, once in theird person, the toughening up my MC, it's had over 250,000 words written for it. I write it when the mood take me. I started it in 2005.

midwestamp · #4 06-23-2010, 08:10 AM

I started my book around mid-January. I'm 8,000 words into it. Not very productive, I know. But after I got started, I realized I didn't like where it was going, and hate wasting words.

A friend of mine wrote his YA novel in less than a month. In less than three he had an agent trying to sell it to publishers. I was more than impressed.

EmmChris · #5 06-23-2010, 01:47 PM

Thanks for the feedback!

Winterbite · #6 06-23-2010, 03:11 PM

My first one took me two years to write. I'm almost done with the second edit now. In those two years I wrote about four hundred thousand words (I scrapped the first draft entirely and began anew twice, once when I was a hundred and sixty thousand words in). The final product ended up being about 160,00 words.

Another novel of mine I managed to write in about ten months, getting to a hundred thousand words. I've written a few novellas as well--one of them finished in about a month and clocking in at 26k.

That's about my average! I'm a bit slow, I think

Gwyndolin · #7 06-27-2010, 10:53 PM

I'm halfway through editing my first novel. The rough draft was 55,000 words, and I've beefed it up to 65,000. I hope by the time I finish editing I'll be nearer to 75,000, but we'll see. I've been working on it a few months short of 2 years. I hope to be done with my own edits right around that 2 year mark, so I can start querying. I keep pushing that back, though, so we'll see.

I'm slow, though. I have no formal training, and I am learning as I go. I want to get it right before I send it off. Plus I work full time, have a husband and 4 kids, and a lot of obligations at church that keep me very busy, so I don't find nearly as much time for writing as I wish I could!

sammo777 · #8 06-28-2010, 12:36 AM

My first novel was 125k words long, and took a year to write and revise, but, I was unemployed at the time, and had plenty of opportunity to work on it, and it alone. It no longer exists, having been burnt, by me, in a fit of pique.

My second novel took two years, was 235k words long, and I revised it, maybe 16 times...

My third novel, the one I'm currently working on, stands at 40,000 words, and I aim to have it completed and ready to submit by January 2011. I'm aiming for 100K words.

Ravenius · #9 06-28-2010, 03:37 PM

It depends on what I'm writing. With novels, there are incomplete stories that have been incomplete for 10 years or more, there are some that I have been working on for 6+ years, there are stories that I've been working on and nearly complete for about 3-2 years, and then there are stories that I finished in about a month.

Writing it can take me about a month or so to write...it's the editing process that takes me the longest in the area of novels.

My short stories don't take me nearly as long as novels I would like to share someday, they are easier and quicker to clean up and don't take me more than week or a day, a month at the worst.

Poems take me from a few minutes to 30 minutes. I very rarely edit my poems because I write them when I am in a certain melancholy mindset, and to edit them would take getting back into that, and once they're written I prefer to lock them away like a journal of some sort I guess if that makes sense.

Gaines · #10 06-28-2010, 05:13 PM

It took me four days. I was screwing around with it and dragged it out. It's a mess but it's done. I estimate it will take me about 5 or 6 years to edit it and make it readable. I'm an excellent driver.

calligraphy · #11 06-28-2010, 05:31 PM

Same here gaines

Although I did most of it in text message. Problematic... I know.

I just forwarded the damn thing to the pub I currently stalk.

Do you think theyll steal my ideas?

Gaines · #12 06-28-2010, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by calligraphy

Same here gaines

Although I did most of it in text message. Problematic... I know.

I just forwarded the damn thing to the pub I currently stalk.

Do you think theyll steal my ideas?

I don't think they will steal your ideas but I do think if they sign you on they will stipulate that you must see a shrink twice monthly and stay on your meds. Pregnant vamp elfs knocked up by their brother speaks loudly of someone with unresolved issues. Are you okay? Is there someone I can call for you? Help me, help you!

tchoppy · #13 06-29-2010, 08:21 AM

I've only written a novella (around 20,000) words and it took me over a year to write it. For me staying motivated to finish something is really hard. I found writing for a biweekly ezine was the motivation I needed to finish two novellas. I have never tried to write longer, but that is my goal for this year anyway. Take more time to write. Right now a lot of my time is taken on developing my creative writing site.

Writing.Geek. · #14 07-29-2010, 05:36 PM

Hey.

Well, I finished a novella, about a year or or so ago. It cashes in with about 39k words. I just edited a little bit of it yesterday. It'll never get published though.

The one I'm working on now is standing by with about 24, 590 words. I don't really have a 'deadline' for it, but I hope to have it finished by this time next year. I really like the story, I'm just kind of stuck on it right now. Even though I love what's happening in it.

Today I actually started to write a new story. I have no idea where it's going, or even if I'll continue it. At the time, I wrote it to try to get the 'creative juices' going so then I could work on my 'official book' that I just told you about in the previous paragraph. It actually worked! So, that's now my technique to get inspired.

Hopefully I'll develop this one though, and eventually have 3 novels or novellas under my belt.

Hope to have one published, too.

Anyways, happy writing!
-WG