How long does it take to write a book?

On writing first drafts, wordcount calendars, and the importance of going back to doing the thing.

Jun 12, 2024

In this post, I’d like to go over how long it took me to write the first draft of my novel.

I can imagine that the topic will be especially interesting for other writers: to someone about to start writing their first book it can give an impression of what to expect; while for those who are more honed in the practice, it can be an interesting comparison (to handle with care, though—I’ll go over all the disclaimers soon).

But I believe that it could be useful for other people, too: I’m pretty sure that some of the insights of this post can be applied to other types of projects or endeavors.

Timeline

It took me two years and a half to finish writing the first draft. It was a huge milestone to achieve, but it didn’t mean that my work was done: I was still far from having a proper book.

And still am. Three years and a half later, I’m still working on the same story. I don’t regret being here, though. Actually, I am quite proud.

To address the necessary disclaimers I mentioned before: the amount of time that someone will need to achieve something is extremely relative. I have friends who think that writing the draft in the time I did is an incredible feat, but I know of other writers who can churn out two or more manuscripts in less. Still, this is the time I needed for the very first big writing project I’ve ever had, and I’m okay with it. Now that some time has passed, I can look more closely at my process and see if there’s something to be learned—and something to be improved.

Wordcount

I get a bit of an ego boost at saying, “I’ve been working on this for years”: it makes it sound as if every day, for months and months, I’ve been at it, writing, planning, and thinking. Which, in my case, I know for a fact that hasn’t been the case.

I started writing in September 2020, but only in March 2021 I decided to create an Excel sheet to track my wordcount (for those who aren’t familiar with the term, wordcount is the number of words written in a session—a book page will fit around 250 words). I was curious to see how many days I really wrote, so I fished out the trackers and gave them a look. Here is an overview:

January and February are greyed out, because I wrote in that time, but didn’t track it.

Each square corresponds to a day. Every day is color-coded, depending on how many words I wrote.

Light beige: less than 500 words (less than 2 pages);
Orange: between 500 and 1.000 words (2-4 pages);
Green: between 1.000 and 1.500 words (4-6 pages);
Dark teal: more than 1.500 words (more than 6 pages).

And you guessed it: the white squares represent the days in which I didn’t write a single word.

In 2021 I wrote 87 days out of 306 (taking out January and February). That’s, like, a little bit more than a fourth of the time at my disposal (28% to be exact). I was so sure I had done better in 2022 but nope, I wrote 102 days out of 365, which is again 28%.

In total, I wrote for 189 days, amounting to 109.780 words (around 440 pages)1.

This means I could have been done in half a year, by writing around 600 words every day.

It feels vulnerable to display such numbers with such clarity. I can’t hide anymore behind the sentence, “It took me two years and a half”. I cringe a bit, looking at those pictures, noticing how entire months went by with me writing nothing (June, August, and December in 2021; October in 2022). In many other months, I wrote for 10 or fewer days.

Insights

But looking at these calendars brings up some fond memories too. In July 2021 I challenged myself to write 1.000 words every day for a week—I managed 6 days, which was still more than what I thought I could achieve. I remember how at some point in 2022 I realized that I function better if I write fewer days a week, but for longer sessions: from May on, I found my groove, and I managed to increase for a few months the amount of days in which I wrote more than 500 words.

And then there’s December 2022—when I finished my draft. For a long while it had felt like the end was kind of visible, but still so, so far away… until, suddenly, I found myself writing the climax. I don’t know how it is for other writers to approach the ending of their stories, but I remember feeling absolutely exhilarated. That month I could write for hours per session—just running like a madman towards the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve never enjoyed writing more than in that period.

But the thing I wanted to point my attention to is that the majority of those colored squares are light beige and orange: in fact, they make up for more than 80% of the days I wrote.

What was decisive for me weren’t the days in which I wrote more than 1.000 words (28 days in total, in which I wrote 36.316 words, around 33% of the whole manuscript). The decisive days were those in which I wrote something. Three pages, a page, a paragraph, anything.

One of such days in of itself makes barely a difference, but put them all together and there you have 70% of my draft.

Takeaways

Before, I wrote that I could have been done in half a year by writing around 600 words every day. The problem is, I don’t believe I would have been able to do that.

Hell, I don’t believe I’d be able to do it even now. More than that: I don’t see the point of doing it.

Because these calendars show something that I find weirdly interesting: they prove that someone can finish writing the draft of a book even if they skip writing for entire months.

There will be consequences for it: it’ll take you more than two years to finish, instead of six months. But… you will finish, eventually. If you keep at it.

The thing that I find fascinating is that “keeping at it” doesn’t mean working at whatever you’re working on every single day. It means simply coming back to your project, no matter how much time has passed in between, whether it has been two days, two weeks, two months, or two years. And in the days you work on it, you don’t have to go full out: just do something.

Does it mean that aiming to do more is bad? Not at all—in fact, I plan to do better next time, now that I’m confident I can. But I wasn’t in the past, and it took me all these years to learn how to be. What helped me and what I think my journey shows, is that focusing on coming back at your project to do just a little more can go a long way.

Conclusion

A weird thought, that I feel compelled to express.

I think, if when I started the very first chapters of my book someone had told me that it would take me more than two years to be done with the first draft, I would have probably given up right there.

It would have felt like being at the beginning of a hiking trail, seeing from there the top of the mountain I was supposed to reach, and how far away it was. For others that could have been motivating: for the newbies who are excited and have no idea what is awaiting them; or the pros, who are confident they will make it. But for me, that would have been overwhelming. I would have needed to delete that view from my mind, look down at my feet, and focus on the next step. And the next. And the next.

I feel different now: I want to approach the rewrite in another way. Still, that doesn’t deny that the strategy I adopted for the first draft was an effective one.

What I mean to say is that I don’t know exactly what you’ll make out of all of this post: if you find it motivating, great. But if looking at all of these numbers and percentages makes you anxious, forget them. Find whatever it is that brings you to keep doing what it is that you want to do. If it’s looking at my calendar pictures, good; if it’s looking away from them, good.

Just… go and do the thing.

If you have any thoughts on what I shared, let me know by simply replying to this email or leaving a comment!

Take care,

Rye Youbs