How much time you take to create your art is irrelevant.
The creation of any given art is a process. How much time it takes to create art is an often controversial, yet deeply personal matter.
This can be particularly disempowering in the ultra-fast, have-it-done-yesterday society we live in. How many competitions do we see on TV where you have 3 days to renovate a home or 30 minutes to cook a meal and the like? Those are forms of art in an extreme environment.
No two people are alike. Hence, if two people are recreating the same painting, one might get it done in an hour while the other needs a whole day. And the result might be so similar that you can’t tell which is which.
Hence, why how long it will take you to do your art is irrelevant.
Over the past few months, I have been getting one day ahead of my blog schedule. I post one blog a day 6 days a week. Thus, my Wednesday blog is written on Tuesday, while my Tuesday blog is typically written on Monday, and so on.
But the Monday blog can be a sticking point. I have allowed flexibility so that it gets written during the weekend, Saturday or Sunday. Except, from time to time, it doesn’t.
For me, there’s a self-imposed deadline to post my articles before 9am. Ergo, when I reach Monday morning and have no blog completed, I have about 3 hours to write one (I typically get out of bed at about 6am).
Without skipping my reading time, that can be cut down to about 2 hours.
Some people would balk at 2 hours to write a thousand-plus word blog. Truth be told, however, I can usually write it in about 30 minutes.
Time is irrelevant
To be clear, while I can write a 1000+ word blog in 30 minutes, my whole process is a bit longer.
After the initial writing, I step away. Maybe I go read articles on Medium, eat breakfast, or do something to give myself a 10-30-minute break away from what I wrote. That done, I go back and read aloud while editing the post.
After that’s completed, I run Grammarly. Then, with that done, I move the article to the web, format, and post it.
That’s how I function when I have not written an article ahead of time. About 90 minutes from concept to writing, editing, formatting, and posting.
When I stay on my self-set schedule and write the day ahead, I typically take about an hour to write the 1000+ word blog (my articles run between 1100-1600 words).
To be honest, I am guessing how long this takes me. Why? Because when I write time loses all meaning for me. The idea carries me off to a place where I am just flowing with it, typing the letter to form the words, sentences, and paragraphs the disseminate the idea I desire to share. The joy I have in the creation of my work overrides concerns about time.
This is why how long it takes to do anything creative – writing, painting, sculpting, cooking, and all other arts – is irrelevant. The time of creation doesn’t matter. The creation itself is what does.
I wrote the first novel of Forgotten Fodder, Unexpected Witness, in a month. Meanwhile, the first novel of The Source Chronicles, Seeker, took two or three years. Unexpected Witness’s editing, formatting, and publishing process took just another month-and-a-half or so. Seeker’s editing, formatting, and publishing process took me over 10 years.
Yet I am equally proud of both.
How long it takes varies
There is a logical reason why Seeker took me so much longer than Unexpected Witness did.
Seeker was the first, fully realized, fantasy novel I wrote as an adult. It was also written while I held a full-time job and participated in a life-absorbing hobby. It was written entirely by the seat of my pants, the title and overall plot not coming to me until I was a good way into it.
Then, it was the first book I had professionally edited – which fundamentally changed my process in multiple ways. There were a couple of long rewrites that occurred and I spent several years attempting to go the traditional publishing route before deciding to self-publish.
Unexpected Witness is the first book in a series of 4 that I have plotted. I wrote it as the first work created wholly from a chapter-by-chapter outlined plan. It was intended to be published within a couple of months of its creation.
I wrote it during the height of the pandemic while I’ve been writing full-time. It was begun 9/23/20 and published 2/28/21. Just over 5 months from creation to publication.
Is a book I wrote in 5 months of less quality than one I took 10 years to create? No. Frankly, I feel that Unexpected Witness and the rest of this series is some of my best work. It rambles less, has a focused plot, and feels more whole and complete than work previously written entirely by the seat of my pants.
I know that not everyone can work at the pace that I do. And this is why how long it takes varies dramatically – and is irrelevant. The creation of the art itself is the point. How long it takes is as different and variable as you and me.
Don’t obsess over time
As a society, we’ve developed a major obsession with time. The most disturbing aspect of this being the false perception of time being not enough, lacking, scarce, and generally insufficient.
Yet great minds have told us that time as we perceive it is merely an illusion. Einstein and Hawking – two of the greatest scientific minds to ever exist – have made such statements.
Albert Einstein:
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
Stephen Hawking:
“The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.”
How we each perceive time is as unique as we are. My perception of time differs from yours. Ergo, when it comes to how much time your creative process takes – it’s not important. The creation itself is what matters.
Unless you have a set deadline placed on you by a publisher, patron, or yourself – you can take all the time you need. Maybe you create in a few minutes, hours, days, years – or any combination therein. Don’t let time impede your creative process.
There are writers better than me that are faster than I am – as well as writers who are slower than me. We’re not in competition – even when we share the market. The uniqueness of our creative work empowers us. And how I experience the empowerment that comes of this will differ from your experience.
How much time you take to create your art is irrelevant. You cannot be too fast or take too long to be creative. Put what time, energy, and focus you can to create joyfully what you set out to bring into the world.
The creation of any given art is a process. How much time it takes to create is not important.
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