Duration of story writing

[EmilyMiller]

I just went back to my notes and convos. I started writing Heaven & Hole on July 8th. It was finally published September 25th.

As well as being the longest story I have ever written (just beating Caputpedes), the above is certainly the longest time that I have spent on any one work, I did also write At Whorey’s Piers in between. Thus was essentially to try to get round writer’s block / refresh my brain.

I know some people here have picked up works after starting them years ago. It was more the amount of time dedicated to [mostly] just one work that I was interested to learn about.

Em

 

[ElectricBlue]

I took ten months to write The Dark Chronicles, my 104k Arthurian novel; and published only two shorter works during that time.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Longest one is just shy of 300k words, took me about ten months while not writing anything else.

 

[ronde]

My two longest stories are only about 55k words and took about three months each to finish. I'm still debating with myself about whether to publish them as single stories or as a series.

 

[alohadave]

My longest is 20k words and I spent about 6 weeks actively working on it. Not every day, but it was my active WIP during that time, and I wrote a shorter story in that time.

 

[Blind_Justice]

"Mud and Magic", 18 chapters, 300,000-ish words. Time to write: 3 years. Initially it was a pretty straight "one chapter a month" affair but the last four coincided with a nasty bout of depression I'm still trying to recover from.

"Express Delivery", standalone, 104,000 words. Time to write: Less than three weeks. Sleep each night during this Herculean effort: Less than three hours. My 2020 Geek Pride submission came about after three other ideas ground to a halt. Neither my Sword'n'Sorcery-, Superhero- or giant stompy robot stories went where I wanted them and with it being early April already, I just barfed out a stupid little story about a Space Trucker and his alien passenger... which turned into a freaking novel.

Both "Red Tsonia" stories took around six months to write. They have been collaborations and if you have a deadline, make sure to adjust your scope to something manageable to fit both collaborators' schedule or mental healrh. Without Loqui, I wouldn't have been able to get one over the finish line, let alone both.

 

[oneagainst]

Coming up to the Mil, 2 years. Published about three quarters of it so far. Latest stuff has taken a year between finishing and rolling out due to the other stuff that had to go out in sequence first.

Holiday in December. Can't wait.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Longest one is just shy of 300k words, took me about ten months while not writing anything else.

I can’t even conceive of that. Am order of magnitude longer than my longest.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

My two longest stories are only about 55k words and took about three months each to finish. I'm still debating with myself about whether to publish them as single stories or as a series.

How you people sit on stories is beyond me. My finger is always itching to press submit.

Em

 

[SimonDoom]

I've been on Lit since December 2016, almost seven years. At least a few years before that, I started my first version of Nude Day Running Adventure, lost the whole thing in a hard drive crash, and restarted it and published it in 2021. So that was probably 8 years or so from the time I started to the time I published.

The story I just published, Darkling Tower, took at least four years to write. I don't recall exactly when I started it. It's not that long -- a little over 16K words. I don't know how some people write as much and as fast as they do.

I have several stories that are at least five years old and only partly written.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I worked on both Written in Blood and The Case of the Richman's Wife for over a year. But not every day, alternating between the two of them and other work during that time. When it came time to do the second draft, a month solid on both, but again, rating between the two works. During that month, I didn't work on anything for pay or any other stories. One in the morning, the other in the evening hours.

 

[StillStunned]

And I was feeling bad that I've been working on chapter 5 of The Rivals for nearly 2 months...

 

[HeyAll]

The fastest I've ever made a story was 1-2 days, including editing and submitting. That was a one page story, Bus Ride with Sister. [become one of my most popular]

Some stories I started, couldn't figure out how to finish, then ended up finishing it a year or two later after figuring out the right angle. [did okay]

There's no correlation between time spent and story success. Some stories that were written quick became way more popular than stories that took a long time. You never know.

 

[samhasstories]

If I write with a head of steam I can easily finish one in a couple days. But more often I start with a head of steam, stop for awhile, and then sometime in the middle of the night months later I shoot awake with an idea how to make it better. Lather, rinse, repeat. And in that way I'm usually working on a number of stories at a time, so it becomes impossible to quantify how long each one takes me by itself.

 

[Djmac1031]

I don't know that this counts because I've published them as separate stories, but:

Came up with the idea for The Devil And Angel Em somewhere around April 2023, and published it in May.

While writing it. I struck upon an origin story idea for the character of Cozbi.

That origin story didn't really fit within the confines of what I was doing with TDAAE, so instead I set the stage within that story for the eventual prequel.

I started writing what eventually become The Seduction Of Darkness immediately after publishing TDAAE, but didn't finish and publish that til late September.

And of course while writing THAT I came up with an idea for a SEQUEL that I've only really just written scattered notes for.

Technically three different chapters, yes, but i consider them all one story.

So,..

Still a work in progress I guess lol

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

All of my stories are under 10,000 words so far. So, a day or two and I can get one cranked out. But I always read and reread it about a dozen times before I turn it over to my editor. I'm working on one that may end up being longer. I don't know yet how long. Doing a different type of storytelling. Using journals, diaries, a memoir (which is just another word for diary, like a journal is), and maybe a news or newspaper report. I have an outline and a few more characters than usual. It's been a slog on it the last two days. But I think it'll go better now that I'm getting used to switching back and forth on who's telling the story.

 

[Altissimus]

This one took me a little over a week to write, from start to finish. It's 63k words, and the longest standalone I've done. I wrote it for the Karaoke challenge, and started it later than I'd intended. Had a deadline to hit. It also turned out longer than I intended. I didn't get much sleep that week.

Sometimes, a story just consumes you and all you want to do is get it down on paper. That was certainly the case here.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

This one took me a little over a week to write, from start to finish. It's 63k words, and the longest standalone I've done. I wrote it for the Karaoke challenge, and started it later than I'd intended. Had a deadline to hit. It also turned out longer than I intended. I didn't get much sleep that week.

Sometimes, a story just consumes you and all you want to do is get it down on paper. That was certainly the case here.

That's a whole lot of story. I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that.

 

[Altissimus]

That's a whole lot of story. I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that.

Yeah, I should've posted it in N&N.

 

[Altissimus]

So a thing I get when I write - dunno about you lot - is a 'recharge time'. I get a piece of work finished and published and I'm like... right. Don't want to write today. Or the next day, and possibly the next. And then I'm recharged and... off I go.

Sometimes that recharge time is a few hours, and sometimes a few days. 'Who Knew' was 1k words, I wrote it in about two hours, and the recharge time was ten days.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Yeah, I should've posted it in N&N.

Novel length, for sure.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

So a thing I get when I write - dunno about you lot - is a 'recharge time'. I get a piece of work finished and published and I'm like... right. Don't want to write today. Or the next day, and possibly the next. And then I'm recharged and... off I go.

Sometimes that recharge time is a few hours, and sometimes a few days. 'Who Knew' was 1k words, I wrote it in about two hours, and the recharge time was ten days.

Well, that's a lot of recharge!

 

[alohadave]

So a thing I get when I write - dunno about you lot - is a 'recharge time'. I get a piece of work finished and published and I'm like... right. Don't want to write today. Or the next day, and possibly the next. And then I'm recharged and... off I go.

It's usually about a week for me.

 

[yowser]

So a thing I get when I write - dunno about you lot - is a 'recharge time'. I get a piece of work finished and published and I'm like... right. Don't want to write today. Or the next day, and possibly the next. And then I'm recharged and... off I go.

Sometimes that recharge time is a few hours, and sometimes a few days. 'Who Knew' was 1k words, I wrote it in about two hours, and the recharge time was ten days.

Forgive me for a sports analogy. Sounds like you're 'in training.' When an athlete is in good condition, they can often press on, beyond normal routines (races, speeds, distance, whatever) 'in the red zone' as it were, but then are capable of it again given a decent break.

Muscles need rest, I suspect the writing muscle is no different. Clears the lactic acid out, rejuvenates, having been stretched, a day or two off, and you're good to go.

 

[Altissimus]

Forgive me for a sports analogy. Sounds like you're 'in training.' When an athlete is in good condition, they can often press on, beyond normal routines (races, speeds, distance, whatever) 'in the red zone' as it were, but then are capable of it again given a decent break.

Muscles need rest, I suspect the writing muscle is no different. Clears the lactic acid out, rejuvenates, having been stretched, a day or two off, and you're good to go.

When it comes to writing, I don't doubt I'm 'in training' and will be for the rest of my life. However, it's often the emotional energy that causes that 'lactic acid' build up - and that 1k piece was pretty emotional to write.