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Dr. Paradise, I totally agree. If a person wants to do something (and it isn’t going to hurt anyone else), then they should do it. If they aren’t particularly good at in the beginning, maybe they’ll improve. Even if they don’t, and they still derive joy from it, then they should keep on.

We all have to decide to what extent we care about results and to what extent we care about process. I totally applaud the person who loves writing and never cares if he/she gets published. I also applaud the person who loves writing and wants to get or stay published. I’m not so impressed by the person who writes purely for money. OK, it’s a job, and most of us have done jobs we’re not thrilled about just because we need the pay check, but writing (and all creative or artistic endeavours) are ones where I think a sense of joy in the process really counts.

OK–here goes, many great, wonderful and professional writers might not agree, and might not like what I say, but hey, I have no fear. That has never been one of my drawbacks.

We should encourage bad writers as much as we encourage good writers, (I am in the bad group, but I don’t need encouragement as I write constantly and love it.) Not all writers are born good at writing and not all good writers will be authors, but there are some poor writers that have some great things to say, (I am not one of those either, as I really have my reading family in mind when I write.) I don’t make money writing and that doesn’t stop me, my writing is not earth shaking and that does not bother me. I write for the love of writing.

I offer a lot of encouragement to my former students and tell them what I have said here, they most likely won’t make money at it, they won’t get a trophy, award or even a certificate, but they will leave something for those who follow and by doing so, they will live longer than the words because we are all a compilation of every word we have ever read, written and spoken.

My favorite discussion is when someone says, I want to write so badly, I can’t stand it, but I don’t know where to begin. (The beginning is one single word)

By clicking on my name, you can see some of my poor efforts at writing. I also saw somewhere above where one of the comments spoke to the time it takes to write a paper or book. I can knock out 250 pages in a day or two and then it may take four years for my two editors to give it back. That is part of the fun. Have no fear of writing, the work is not in the writing, it is in all the things you or someone else has to do to what you have written that is work.

It even helps with the little nagging I’m-not-good-enough-to-pull-off-this-scene fear that leads directly to procrastination

The only thing I’ll add is that you do tend to get faster. In the beginning, you have so much to learn, including what writing process works best for you. For example, some people (“plotters”) work out a relatively detailed outline of the entire book before writing it, which probably speeds their process. The rest of us (“pantsers” – for “seat of the pants”) either don’t enjoy plotting ahead of time, or aren’t able to do it, and we discover the story and characters as we write. We probably need to spend more time editing, as a result.

In general, over time your first drafts become cleaner, and are often faster to write. Also, once you actually start to make money on your writing, you may be able to make some life-type decisions, like whether to cut down on the day job to allow yourself more writing time, in which case you’ll be able to produce faster.

Like so many questions in publishing, the answer to this one is, “It depends.”

First of all, until you’ve sold a novel, you probably won’t need to worry about how long you’ll be given to write the next one. After that it depends on what’s in your contract. That’s the deadline you and your editor agree on during the negotiations.

If you want to know the most time you can ask for–well, it depends. If you’re a No. 1 NYT bestselling author, you can get more leeway than if you’re a first time author. However, a publisher is not going to want to have too much time between when they pay you your advance and when you turn in the book, because they don’t like to leave their money tied up.

It also depends on what genre you write in. For science fiction/fantasy, the standard is usually about a year. For romance, it can be a lot shorter.

How long will the book be? This can affect the time you’re allowed, too. If you’re writing a 60,000 word young adult novel, you’ll probably get less time to turn it in than if you’re writing a 200,000 word saga.

There are a gazillion factors that affect your question, but the main thing you need to think about is how long, realistically, it will take you to complete a new novel. That’s something to keep an eye on while you’re practising!

I have one question for you and the other authors what is the longest a publisher will give you to finish and submit a book?