Firsts Quote by Rob Roberge

It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.

— Cynthia Kadohata

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

— Lloyd Alexander

It took me 40 years to write my first book.

— Paulo Coelho

I take a very long time to write my books - from five to ten years.

— Svetlana Alexievich

I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little…

— Ben Fountain

I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my…

— James Rollins

I didn't write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which…

— Gail Carson Levine

I have written about 240 books and some short stories, too. It's taken me many years.

— Eve Bunting

I worked in Hollywood as a reader and a would-be writer for about 6 years before I sold my first story.

— Sidney Sheldon

So it took me five years because in the interim I have been doing a lot of personal appearances and movies and some television…

— Robert Klein

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally…

— Janet Evanovich

There are stories still in existence that I wrote when I was five. However, I did not get published until I was seven.

— Tom Robbins