How Long Does it Take To Write a Novel?

And how do you find the time?

It’s a NEW YEAR and the January vibes are still strong and a lot of people (including me) are very interested in SETTING GOALS. Setting goals with writing is a double edged sword. On the one hand - it’s necessary, I think. Without a goal to work towards, we lose our sense of momentum. And in long fiction, there’s such a clear implied goal anyway - it’s FINISH THE BLOODY NOVEL. But that’s overwhelming and massive. We need to break it up, make it seem more manageable. So this is where goal setting comes in. I offer you here two approaches to first drafting and goal setting - a basic level and a super nerd level with spreadsheets and maths. You will know which one is for you by your visceral reaction to the word “spreadsheet”.

Basic Level

On a basic level, we can either track our productivity by time, or by words. So either, we want to write for 300 minutes per day, every day, or we want to write 3000 words per week. Of the two of these, unless you are very very deadline focussed, I would recommend tracking by time. Don’t punish yourself for a bad day - if you showed up and did the work, then that’s great! I recommend working in 25 minute bursts with breaks in between, and I would suggest that, if you’re very serious about your writing, and enjoying it, you try to find 10 slots of 25 minutes to work in every week. If you stick with this, you should have a first draft finished by July - potentially sooner. 

And that’s it! But go on. You know you want to see my nerdy sums…