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.
Define finish.
About 3 months for a 200K word behemoth.
sigh...
I'll let you know when I'm @#$@# done...
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.
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....
Two years and counting
*Sigh*