Writers Don't Give Up

 It takes years for some writers to feel that their work is ready for publication. Some examples:

Augustine spent fifteen years On the Trinity. Victor Hugo spent twenty years writing Les Misérables. Ezra Pound spent fifty-seven years composing The Cantos. Margaret Mitchell spent ten years writing Gone with The Wind. J. R. R. Tolkien spent sixteen years composing The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien also began work on The Silmarillion in 1914 and worked on it through the 1950s. In general, he spent many years writing his various works set in Middle-Earth. 

Some writers also never finished their work. After over ten years of writing, Geoffrey Chaucer had written twenty four Canterbury tales before dying. He had desired to write one hundred and twenty. 

When should a writer seek to get their work published? When they feel it is near perfection and it is ready to be read. There is no time limits on the amount of time needed for writing a book.