L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami May 21, 2016 - 11:13pm

How long did it take you to finish your first novelette, novella, or novel? For me, I would say it took about nine years, plus a year of rewriting and restructuring. Certain character went into the background, while others their role was expanded.

So their role was completely discovered by me when I didn't know how to utilize them. For example the whole "world of magic dying for sake of high technology" came together much easier than the rest of the novella that almost the length of a novel now.

Though making each chapter an entire 2.5K story arc of a different POV was an unusual experience for me. It was an experience totally unlike my children's books.

I also feel weird about the fact that it's immensely harder to query (a lot of the reason I didn't) was how you would deemphaize the subplot without reducing its importance.

At nine year writing you might think it be a doorstopper, but nope it came together as two (totalling 40,000 word altogether) novellas of Nadine and Vella.

That largely because I started as a poet and flash fiction writer.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated May 22, 2016 - 8:22am

Define finish.

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami May 22, 2016 - 1:17pm

Finish as in most of the manuscript is complete. It just needs some touching up.

DrWood's picture
DrWood from Milwaukee, WI, living in Louisiana is reading A different book every 2-5 days. Currently Infinite Jest May 22, 2016 - 2:40pm

About 3 months for a 200K word behemoth.

 

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal May 24, 2016 - 10:39pm

sigh...

I'll let you know when I'm @#$@# done...

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami May 25, 2016 - 2:23pm

You can do it! We'll root for you here.

Gordon Highland's picture
Gordon Highland from Kansas City is reading Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore May 26, 2016 - 5:51am

About three years each for my two 70,000-word novels. The first one was actually four-plus, but the first year I wasn't taking it so seriously and just kind of piddling around. If I didn't have a career and could write full-time (which I don't honestly think I'd enjoy as much as the fantasy seems), I could maybe do one in a year. I hear you, though. My writing background up until then was mostly ad copy and video/film scripts, so I was used to extremely tight, economical language, and carried that approach over into fiction.

Jose F. Diaz's picture
Jose F. Diaz from Boston is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel May 26, 2016 - 6:26am

It'll be done when it's done. No one is paying me, so the world can wait until I'm ready.

Of course that isn't the question....

voodoo_em's picture
voodoo_em from England is reading All the books by Ira Levin May 26, 2016 - 8:41am

Two years and counting 

*Sigh*

 

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami May 29, 2016 - 10:58am

I'm kind of breaking out of the tight language approach thankfully. I'm finding the more I read other works like Murakami it started having that musical slow steady simple quality.

Its weird thinking the shortest works were slower and harder to write.

If course living with someone that horks every chance she gets ... especially when I'm writing or drawing. So writing mire may need to wait.

Plus she had this idea in her head to keep going to fares we can't afford. So here I am also hungry and broke at folklife. Never again.