The day before yesterday I read a debate on the internet about the process of writing a novel. Someone asked if it was possible to write a novel of over 90000 words in a month. Some of the answers were that it was easy, but I could say that most of them were negative.
And yesterday, while I was outside in a cafe, I overheard a group of friends discussing the same topic in a different way. One of them said to the others: “Did you know that this guy (the name of a famous author was mentioned) spent almost 10 years of his life finishing his book? What a waste! Can you imagine spending 10 years of your life on a book? How absurd! Surely you could at least write something more than a novel in that time”. They pitied the situation and laughed in unison. They were talking about a Nobel Prize-winning author.
Of course, I didn’t care what they said and minded my own business, although I really would like to talk about how difficult the whole process of writing a novel can be. Funnily enough, I was writing part of the last chapter of my book. I still have a bit to finish, but I am getting closer.
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The first thing is that we should enjoy writing. That is the whole point. If you do not enjoy what you are creating, then it is not a real creation and certainly not a work of art. Dedication, discipline, motivation, ambition, joy… All these things are needed in writing. Can you imagine having them in your heart and mind all the time? Well, if you are a superhuman, then you do not need to imagine such a thing. But writers are normal people; they have desperate, terrible, destructive moments in their daily lives.
Sometimes I just can’t concentrate on writing. I don’t know about you. One day I might lose my focus on the story or article just because I hear a sudden noise outside. It could destroy all my concentration. Other days I don’t care what’s going on in the world, I just write until I’m done.
There are moments when you can write and moments when you cannot. Some people are more energetic in the morning, others are night owls. I almost always write my articles between 12pm and 5pm. For my novel, if I’m at home, I can concentrate better between 6pm and 2am, or if I’m out of town, it’s usually after 4pm until I leave the place where I’m writing.
There are many reasons for being able to write and just as many reasons for not being able to write. That is OK and understandable. There can be no judgement. Sure, if there is a deadline for your work, then you should try to push yourself to the limit. But even then, would that be better than what you could normally do in a relaxed state of mind without any constraints?
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Let’s forget about random people or me. Let’s hear about the professionals, the famous writers, the ones who have won prizes.
Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstein” at the age of 18. The idea came to her during a summer holiday in Switzerland. The novel is often regarded as one of the earliest examples of science fiction.
This is a really short period of time (I assume the summer holiday only lasts a few months, not sure) for a fascinating book when you consider that it was written in 1818 (what were people doing in their free time back then?) and it was an extraordinary book for its time. And even now. I would think again and again about writing such a story at that time, and would probably delay publication even if I did write it. It was indeed a brave decision.
Meanwhile, J.R.R. Tolkien spent over 12 years writing the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (1954–1955). The complex world-building, intricate languages and detailed appendices all contributed to the lengthy writing process.
Of course, we are talking about three books. And everything in them is tightly woven to make them great. But even then, it took a master of literature and linguistics many years to complete a novel. Imagine if it took him only a month or three. How good would it really be? It would not be as good, of course. But I think he would not want to spend so little time writing.
Speaking of little time, some of them did better than expected. But who they were and how many stories they had written before makes all the difference. Ernest Hemingway wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952) in just two months. The concise yet powerful narrative won him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”
Well, Hemingway did a better job in less time than that fisherman, that is for sure.
George R.R. Martin is best known for his sprawling “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. While the first book took several years to write, the subsequent books took longer. “A Game of Thrones” was written in 1996, did people really know about the book or the author until the TV series came out in 2011?
While García Márquez, a Nobel laureate, wrote his masterpiece “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967) in 18 months, Kazuo Ishiguro, another Nobel laureate, took about four years to complete “The Remains of the Day” (1989).
Harper Lee, a Pulitzer Prize winner, took several years to write “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960). However, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk took about six years to write “My Name is Red”.
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I had the first idea for my book in 2011 or 2012, I think. Of course it has changed over time. I left out a lot of thoughts or developed it into something new in different parts. It was only at the end of 2017 that I started to write how it should be constructed, and that took me almost 2–3 years. Just to write drafts of themes, plots, ideas, all the infrastructure of it. There was no character and no specific introduction to my first chapter.
I didn’t work on it every day. Life goes on. You have to adapt to it. Sometimes you can’t even find the time to write about it, even though you can’t stop thinking about it. The opposite also happens, you just can’t write a single thing because it just doesn’t come to you. You just cannot feel it at that moment.
Started my very first chapter (which was only one or two paragraphs long) a few years ago, in 2020 or 2021. Worked on it non-stop until I had to give up after a while. Worked on it again a year later and gave up again. Somehow I managed to write about 2/3 of it, I think. But in the end I had to give it up completely this time because of personal, health and family problems.
Still, it had a place in my mind. I wrote the next chapters in my mind at night before going to sleep, but never wrote a single note. One day, the same day I started writing my articles on this platform, I took the opportunity to start a story that I wanted to build entirely on the same infrastructure. This became the unexpected prequel to this novel. It started almost five months ago and I am sure I will finish it soon or at least in the first quarter of 2024.
I had to spend years to finish the stories I wrote in five months.
So no, there is no set time for your creation. If you want to restrict your imagination, your relaxed mind and your artistic soul, then go ahead, rush it all. But you won’t like it. If you happen to be a fast writer, I envy you. I really want to write dozens of stories and novels. But what I have in my hand already satisfies my heart.
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