So, how long did it take you to write Seeking the Center? I get that question regularly. I wish I had kept track of the hours, but of course I didn't. For the first two to four years I didn't even know that I was writing it! But, here's my best (although rather long and rambling) answer to the question:
The first glimmers started in 2008-2009. My notes - the ones I can find - date back to 2010. My characters started to come into existence during summer vacation 2010, and the earliest passages that I wrote date to 2010 or 2011. The year 2012 was kind of a lost year, for various reasons, but during the spring and summer of 2013 I did a ton of research, and I wrote the bulk of the story during the academic year 2013-2014. In the fall of 2014 I found an editor who wanted to work with me on it (sheer luck!) and we worked on and off (she had other projects going) from early 2015 until mid 2016 - outlining and re-outlining, adding and deleting sections, revising, editing, proofreading, etc. - until the book was ready for publication in the fall of 2016.