Random Question: What's the shortest time in which you've written a book?

30 days. Once. Haven't been able to do it since though I've come close once.

12 days for a 65K Harlequin/Silhoutte ms. I was happy with it. The editors were happy enough with it to ask for a full, but rejected it for reasons I don't remember. Personalized rejection, IIRC.

Haven't had the time to dive into a story like that since, though. Don't know if I could do it again.

Seven weeks for about 100k words. I just finished a new, 85k book in around the same amount of time. But that's also out of ten complete novels, so my average time is a bit higher.

4 weeks, 70k words.

Needless to say, the revisions are taking a loooooooooooooong time.

42 hours.

KTC wins!

Me - three weeks. But it sucked and the ashes of the manuscript have since been buried in an unmarked grave.

Four weeks for 120K words, late on my deadline, but they loved it.

But that's ALL I did for a month. No going out, lousy frozen food, no play time.

4 weeks and about 85K

I managed a first draft of 60K in 6 days, but there was plenty of revising after that.

5 weeks for about 65K words. Ish. And I was very burned out by the end, I don't think I'm supposed to write that fast.

You guys that did it so fast, do you have jobs? How many hours a day was this?

I think my wife is fantastic for letting me have 3 hours a day to write!

About 4 months for a first draft (YA, 70,000K).

I work full time.

40 days - 85k. And it's the best book I've ever written...so far.

Wrote my first novel in somewhere around 4 weeks during a summer. I'll never zip through a novel like that for my own sake and for my readers' sakes again. The novel remains on my bookshelf as a reminder of everything not to do. If it weren't so helpful in that respect, I'd burn it, and I am more than a little against book burning.

Since I can't be the only one this thread is making feel incompetent...
I wrote 'The End' on my first novel in about 11 months (186k words), and so far it's taken me 3 more months to edit less than half of it & cut as much as needs to be cut. So I'm guessing roughly 18 months start to finish.

42 hours? *falls over*

I work full time and have 2 small children. 3 weeks for a 50K book is my record.

2 weeks 81K. I do not recommend it... but my chiro loved me

I let it sit for a week then went for edits & brought it to 84K in another couple days.

lucidzfl said:

You guys that did it so fast, do you have jobs? How many hours a day was this?

I think my wife is fantastic for letting me have 3 hours a day to write!

Click to expand...

I do novel marathons. There's one taking place from this Friday to Monday, actually. Muskoka Novel Marathon. It'll be the first one I don't attend in three years. I love writing like this so much that I find it hard now to write any other way. I sit in my chair and write the whole thing out in 48 hours or less. It's an amazing trip. I would encourage anybody to try it...at least once!

KTC said:

I do novel marathons. There's one taking place from this Friday to Monday, actually. Muskoka Novel Marathon. It'll be the first one I don't attend in three years. I love writing like this so much that I find it hard now to write any other way. I sit in my chair and write the whole thing out in 48 hours or less. It's an amazing trip. I would encourage anybody to try it...at least once!

Click to expand...

What? You weren't kidding about the 42-hour thing? I thought you were joking.

That's insane. I admire you for doing those things though.

I think I'd need about three months recovery time after doing one of those.

Just out of interest, how did it turn out? Was it editable, or one to hide under your bed?

AnonymousWriter said:

What? You weren't kidding about the 42-hour thing? I thought you were joking.

That's insane. I admire you for doing those things though.

I think I'd need about three months recovery time after doing one of those.

Just out of interest, how did it turn out? Was it editable, or one to hide under your bed?

Click to expand...

I did it in 2007 and won the Best Adult Novel award. And I did it again in 2008 and won the Best Adult Novel award again. Both novels are with publishers...being considered for publication. We submit the novels to the contest at the end of the weekend...without editing them. They go to a panel of industry judges. Then about two months later we have a wrap party and the winners are announced....at that time the winner has another 2 months to edit their manuscript and then it goes on to a publisher for consideration. So you write the novel over a weekend in July...and if you win the contest it's on the publisher's desk in November.


It's absolutely amazing. If you go to the link I posted there's a picture page and also a page with comments on past marathons. I'm not going to this weekend's marathon because I'm going to a writing program in Nairobi this December. I'm saving every penny...but I am REALLY going to miss this year's marathon. It's phenomenal. (-;

raburrell said:

Since I can't be the only one this thread is making feel incompetent...

Click to expand...

No need to feel that way. We're all different. And some of us do this every day for a paycheck.

90,000 words(ballpark) in twenty-one days.

aadams73 said:

No need to feel that way. We're all different. And some of us do this every day for a paycheck.

90,000 words(ballpark) in twenty-one days.

Click to expand...

Nah, I was kidding about feeling incompetent. Sorta at least.
I have a day job and a two year old. I do what I can do