Over the past nine months, everyone kept asking me, “So… is your book done yet?” Ugh! Really? How long is it supposed to take to write a novel? I thought I was moving along quite quickly.
How long should it take to write a novel?
I did what I always do when I want factual information. I googled it. (Ha. Ha.) Do you know what I found? Famous novels took a variety of time. From 2.5 days (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) to 16 years (Lord of the Rings Trilogy). Click here for a nice infographic on famous authors / books.
But those are super FAMOUS people. What about everyone else? Those authors without huge publishing contracts. Those who perhaps balance a day job as well as writing.
Well, I met a whole crew of awesome authors during my Kindle Scout campaign. I thought I would throw that question their way.
I’m going to spotlight some of their answers in a three part blog series this week. (Read PART 2 or PART 3) I hope you enjoy the feedback and meeting some new writers–people who have been super supportive of me and my writing adventures.
Today: Speculative Fiction Authors (Fantasy / Science Fiction / Horror)
Note: You can CLICK any book cover below to learn more.
QUESTION: How long did it take you to write your most recent book(s)?
M. Black: Simulation is my most recently finished book. I just finished Quantum State, but it hasn’t been edited and reedited, and beta-read yet. It took about 3 months as most of my books take.
Kay Ling: I spent at least two years rewriting and polishing Beyond the Forest, a novel I wrote and then abandoned in the 1980s due to my time-consuming career. So, I suppose I could say it took me three decades to write it!
Bill Hiatt: Full-length novels typically take three to six months, depending on their length and complexity, as well as upon how many other demands on my time there are while I’m writing.
Steve Vernon: Too long. Way too freaking long.
J.P. Cawood: I wrote my first two books in a year and a half. Six months of that were full-time and the rest was while juggling a job.
Aaron Frale: It takes about six months to a year depending on my life outside of writing.
Have you written a novel? How long did it take you?
Please post in the comments.
(Other stellar novels to check out in these genres)
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Joynell Schultz, Author 
First two took 6 months each, though I’d love to write the 90k novels in two months! 🙂
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90K in 2 months would be AWESOME! Especially if it included all the revisions and edits. Too bad work and real life gets in the way (and, for me, aimlessly surfing the internet!)
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Yah, I don’t think I’ll get it in two months… I’d be happy with 2.5 per book! My goal is AT LEAST 2k words a day on top of the blog and business side of things
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Wow. I bow down to you, almighty one. Simply amazing!
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The 2k is easy, but I have the time to do it. I see plenty in my writing group hitting 5k a day and I bow down… 😉
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Well, I haven’t written a novel yet (though it is on the cards). But I really enjoyed this post; also the infographic – that was a great add-on. I am wondering though – is the timeline only inclusive of the amount of time it took to write the first draft, or the final manuscript that gets published? What do you think?
Meanwhile, merry Christmas to you and your family and happy holidays!
P.S: To set the stage for my upcoming book on Fear, I will be hosting guest posts related to fear in January. If you’d like to contribute, please let me know here.
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I wondered the same thing about the timeline in the infographic. I think the quick ones were just the writing portion and the longer timeframes used both writing and revising. That’s just my opinion though.
Merry Christmas to you too!
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Yeah, possibly!
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Most of my novels began with NaNoWriMo but took another two or so months to go from 50,000 words to 80,000. The only novel that wasn’t started during Nano took me four months to complete the rough draft and about 10 months to revise and edit.
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That’s a great distinction–how long to do the actual “writing” vs how long to revise and edit. I never knew that revising and edition too so much longer than the actual writing part!
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A lot of that time was waiting for my writer’s group to get their thoughts to me. So I guess I’m not sure how long revising actually took 🙂
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Took me 8 weeks to write my book. I have already put over 24 weeks into editing it…
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Isn’t that terrible? I’ll have to talk about editing in my next post.
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I thought writing the thing would be the hard part. For me, that’s just the beginning.
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Agreed! Honestly, finishing a novel is the easy part. Making it readable and believable is the hard part.
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Reblogged this on Lori's Lane and commented:
If you are an author, how long does it take you to write a novel?
While I was in Kindle Scout, I met some fantastic authors. We’ve been discussing the many facets of our writing processes. Some of our answers are shared on Joynell Schultz’s Blog today. You may even find a new favorite author in fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi. Click to read her post with a peek inside our discussion.
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Thanks for the reblog!
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I’m afraid my answer is not near as interesting as all of yours in this post and in the comments. 😛 Great job, Joynell.
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I’m sure it is! 😉
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