While writing “Lightning Crack, Thunder Roll,” it occurred to me that other writers might benefit from a discussion of the length of time a story takes to write.

Of course, the first answer is the obvious: It depends upon the writing speed (usually measured in words per hour) of the writer. For example, a writer who can crack out 2,000 words per hour can finish the first draft of a novel (say, 70,000 words long) in half the time of someone who writes 1,000 words per hour, 37.5 hours vs. 70 hours.

But that obvious answer belies the deeper issue of when those hours actually occur. A 1k writer may complete those 70 hours in one week vs. the 2k writer’s 37.5 hours over six months, or vice versa.

And that’s perfectly ok. The first thing every writer needs to do to stay mentally healthy is let go of rigid notions of what is and what is not acceptable for the completion of a novel, the second thing being to stop comparing your process to other writers’ processes.

Except, that’s what I’m going to do here specifically to make the point that we should accept a wide range of elapsed times and writing speeds not just from other writers, but from ourselves. So, here we go, two comparisons that will hopefully shed some light on the question posed in the title.

A Tale of Two Authors…

Pulp writers hammer out first drafts at record speed. When I first read Amanda M. Lee‘s account of her monthly production schedule, words escaped me: 10,000 words a day, five days a week for three weeks, the fourth week in the month being reserved for editing the three novels she produced during the first three weeks. That’s an amazing output; it requires some really tough discipline and a stable creative pool.

Contrast that against writers who publish one book every twelve to eighteen months, like many traditionally published authors, and even some self-published ones. Longer books than what Amanda’s putting out, sure, and sometimes more complicated ones, but the production time is comparatively a snail’s pace.

Right now, I’m in the middle of reading 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. I’ve never read a story of his, or if I have, it was a long, long time ago, so I searched through my local library’s slim pickings and chose this one.

The edition I’m reading contains an introduction written by Clarke detailing part of the creative process behind the making of the book, which was apparently written almost concurrently with the screenplay.

The idea for the story was seeded, according to Clarke’s introduction to the millennial edition of 2001 (the edition I’m reading), when Clarke met Stanley Kubrick on 23 April 1964. Clarke details the context of the idea by contrasting the grand vision of the theme they wanted to tackle (humanity’s place in the universe) against the U.S. space program at that time. They knew they had a daunting task in front of them, and they tackled it anyway.

That’s what I love about writers who were born before the era of safe rooms and participation trophies; they didn’t let a little thing like a lack of sufficient technology stop them from creating a damn good story.

Clarke continued writing 2001 through much of the rest of that year. In his diary, he notes, on Christmas Eve:

Slowly tinkering with the final pages, so I can have them as a Christmas present for Stanley.

In the next paragraph, Clarke writes:

This entry [from December 24th] records my hope that the novel was now essentially complete; in fact, all we had was merely a rough draft of the first two thirds, stopping at the most exciting point.

It wasn’t until around October 1965 that Clarke and Kubrick decided what that final third would be.

2001 wasn’t the only project Clarke or Stanley worked on from 1964 to 1968, when the movie and novel were released, but it was, for fans of Science Fiction, an important one. Clarke continued tinkering with the novel version of the story during the filming of the movie, in part to align the plot and events of the novel with that of the movie. The novel itself contains a richer story by design, and I, for one, am glad of it.

…and of Three Stories

While some writers have predictable production schedules like Amanda M. Lee, most of us fall somewhere between days and decades to complete the first draft of a novel.

Short stories are the same way. Here are examples from my own stable of stories, detailing the writing times of three of my short stories, one of which is still not finished.

Story No. 1: “Lightning Crack, Thunder Roll” was conceived of during an afternoon ride through the mountains, on August 26th. Over about an hour, I studied the characters, the setting, and the situations that make this story interesting, outlined it, and conceived the first and last lines.

That night, around nine or ten o’clock, I began putting words to (digital) paper. By midnight, I had the first 900 words down. I took an entire twenty-four hours off, then sometime between midnight and one a.m. the next day (August 28th), I began writing again and completed the first draft, which weighed in at around 4700 words, somewhere between 4 a.m. and 4:20 a.m.

In between writing, I got up and stretched, went to the bathroom, refilled my water bottle, and otherwise puttered. I also got stuck, so I printed out the section I was stuck on, reworked it using a red pen applied directly to the printout, and went back at it.

I finally got to bed around 4:30-4:40 a.m., about half an hour later than my normal bedtime, and had a terrible time trying to sleep. The story was still with me, so the next day, I got up, drove down to Sylva, and ate while looking over the entire first draft, several pages of which ended up full of red scribbles as I cut sections, added in conversations, tightened the writing, and honed the theme to a razor sharp edge.

After eating (and finishing my first pass of the first draft), I drove to the Dunkin’ Donuts a few miles away and started inputting my notes into the digital version of the manuscript, and got stuck in the last half of the final scene. So I drove home and let the manuscript rest some more, and finally finished my revisions yesterday afternoon (August 29th), after which I handed it off to my editor.

I may have to redo the last two paragraphs and, of course, Richard may have some suggestions, but other than that and a proofreading pass, the story is done. I have around five hours of first-draft writing time in it, max, plus another couple of hours of revision. That’s a pretty quick turnaround time for me, for a short story.

And it’s a really strong story, too. I’m seriously considering submitting it to some literary short story writing contests, and if not that, it will eventually be published in a weird weather short story collection.

Story No. 2: “The Trouble with Turner,” originally called “Pendulum.” I conceived of the premise on 25 August 2017; it even has its own page in my journal slash idea book, which I number and index. (Yes, I’m that odd, but when you have an idea book, it’s a good idea to organize it.) All I had at that time was the premise. From p. 77 of my journal:

Two people meet at the juncture of where two worlds/realities collide and fall in love.

The idea being that the worlds/realities “swing” past each other in some way on a regular (cyclical?) basis.

Now you know as much as I did when I began writing the story a few days later on August 29th. The story rested until November, during which I wrote on it for two non-contiguous days, then rested again until January, when I devoted four writing days to it, and since then has received additional writing time in March, April, May, June, and July, by which point it stood at around 8,100 words.

Alas, I haven’t written a single day on it this month, but that’s because I was majorly stuck.

The huge problem I’ve had with “Trouble” is the science, as in, there’s a lot of science behind the story. It’s required some research and a lot of thinking to get around. Thankfully, I do occasionally have insights. A few nights ago, just after I’d gone to bed and cut out the light, a major insight hit me, so I cut the light back on and wrote it down, then went on to sleep.

I keep a pen and a stack of index cards beside my bed for just this purpose. Handiest thing ever, although I have used the memo app on my phone to write entire stories. No kidding. I talk about that next.

Now that said insight has hit, I’m going to try to finish “Trouble” this week, first so I can move on to another story, and second because I’d like to get Romancing the Weird, the short story collection in which “Trouble” will be published, out in September.

Story No. 3: “Schrödinger’s Door” is less than 550 words long, including the title. I wrote it in about half an hour on the memo app of my phone because the blankety-blank idea wouldn’t let me go to sleep. It took less than that amount of time to polish it, and now I have a piece of flash fiction I have no idea what to do with, except append it as a freebie to an upcoming newsletter. It’s a neat little story, I swear, or I wouldn’t impose it on my readers, but it’s also a tad weird. Well, weirder than normal.

Stop Pressuring Yourself

If there’s one thing the past few years have taught me, it’s to stop pressuring myself to finish stories on a strict deadline. My process just doesn’t work that way. Shoot, my brain doesn’t work that way. I need time to reflect and adjust and ponder and…

Well, I just need time for the story to gel, and there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there’s nothing wrong with writing an entire novel in five or ten days.

It takes as long as it takes.

Just don’t let fear hold you back. One of the things award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch discusses in her weekly blog posts for writers is to know thyself. Take the time to understand why a story is stuck. Is it the story itself? Does it need additional thought or research, or a completely different direction?

Or is it some underlying fear keeping you from working on and finishing that story?

I’ve been tackling my own fears lately, precisely because they’re holding me back. There are days when I can’t write, days when the words refuse to come, not because they’re not there, waiting for me to share them, but because I’m afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, afraid to write the story as it should be told, a lesson I learned well from the writing and publishing of the Sunshine Walkingstick Series.

So I’m unlearning those lessons, facing my fears, and writing anyway.

But one thing I’m trying to remember is to not rush the process, to let stories flow naturally, organically, and unforced, to take my time if the story demands it, or hurry if it’s begging to be told.

It takes as long as it takes.

Don’t beat yourself up about it. All you’re doing is killing your creative spirit. Instead, relax, have fun, and let the words flow where they will. Your stories will be better for it, and so will your state of mind.