"Angela's Ashes really took 30 years to write," said author Frank McCourt. In the late 1990s, that book was on bestseller lists for more than two years, sold more than 2.3 million copies, went to more than 64 printings.

On the other hand, Michael Angelo Avallone wrote a complete novel in 36 hours. Once, while dining in a New York restaurant, he wrote a 1,500-word short story in 20 minutes. All told, he wrote some 1,000 works, including 36 mysteries.

One of the authors of books for the Frommer Travel Guides says it takes her three months to write one of those books.

A writer of a young adult novel of 32 chapters told me she wrote it in two weeks.

Barbara Shafferman, author of the highly-rated New Age thriller, President's Astrologer, took a year and a half to write it.

 

How long it will take you to write a book depends partly on
how MUCH you write a day.

"My goal is 2,000 words a day"---about 8 pages, says Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha.

Gustav Flaubert wrote Madam Bovary one page a day---about 250 words.

Thomas Wolfe, author of such books as Look Homeward, Angel, sometimes wrote 1,000 pages in three months---some 250,000 words, about 2,750 words a day, about eleven pages.

When enthused about a project, Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer et al, wrote 20 pages a day---about 5,000 words.

Both Steinbeck and Hemingway said they consistently wrote very close to 2,000 words, or 8 pages, a day.

Famed poet Robinson Jeffers said he wrote 14 words a day.

I write about 1,000 words, 4 pages, a day.

How long it will take you to write a book also depends partly on
how LONG you write a day.

"I'd write until I petered out, usually four to five hours," said Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes.

Olivia Goldsmith, author of First Wives Club, writes four hours a day---from 8am till noon---then edits for about an hour after lunch. (Same schedule I'm on.)

Some writers write as little as an hour at a time.

Many, perhaps most, writers soon settle into a routine, writing about the same number of words and for about the same length of time at each effort.

In Sum: How long it takes you to write your book depends entirely on you. Note the words of Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore:

"The butterfly counts not months but moments,
And has time enough."