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2017考研英语拓展阅读：写一本畅销书要花多长时间？

　　Planning to write a world-changing work of fiction? You might want to set aside a substantial chunk of time.

　　想写一本改变世界的小说吗?你可能要留出相当多的时间。

　　This mind-boggling infographic compiles the purported lengths of time it took 30 authors to write some of their most beloved works, and the range is remarkable (from 2.5 days to 16 years). On the whole, though, it looks like the Great American Novel can’t be written during NaNoWriMo ― or any month, for that matter.

　　这张令人难以置信的信息图表是按照30名作家最受喜爱的一些作品的写作长度排列的，而这个时间的范围也很值得注意(从两天半到16年)。但是就此而言，总体上伟大的美国小说似乎都不能在“全国小说写作月”或者任何一个月份期间写出来。

　　There are, of course, those rare exceptions: As I Lay Dying, one of William Faulkner’s great masterpieces, took him only six weeks to write. On the other hand, Twilight took Stephanie Meyer three entire months. (We can’t all be Faulkner.)

　　当然，也有例外——威廉·福克纳最伟大的作品之一《我弥留之际》只用六周就写了出来。另一方面，斯蒂芬妮·梅尔写《暮色》则整整花了三个月。(我们总不能都是福克纳吧。)

　　On the high end of the scale, J.R.R. Tolkien spent 16 years on The Lord of the Rings ― but to be fair, the infographic counts the time it took him to write the entire trilogy.

　　作为花费最长的一个，托尔金写《指环王》花了16年——不过为了公平起见，这个图表把他写三部曲的时间都算了进去。

　　Still, that should be some comfort to bitter Song of Ice and Fire readers. With ongoing vagueness about the release date of the long-teased next book in the series, The Winds of Winter, who knows how glacial George R.R. Martin’s writing pace could turn out to be. (A possible future addition to the infographic: George R.R. Martin, Song of Ice and Fire series, 47 years.)

　　而这对于苦涩的《冰与火之歌》来说，应该稍微有那么一点点慰藉。该系列的下一本《凛冬的寒风》拖了很久，可还是迟迟不公布发行日期，谁也不知道高冷的乔治·马丁大爷的写作速度会变成什么样。(在不久的将来，这个图表可能会加上：乔治·R·R·马丁，《冰与火之歌》系列，47年。)

　　But seriously, if this infographic shows us anything, it’s that great fiction can’t be rushed ― or, if you’re John Boyne, feverishly dashing off a 224-page novel in a handful of days, it can’t be slowed. Whether it’s Winter or the next Gone Girl (which took Gillian Flynn three years to write), it’ll come when it’s time.

　　但是，说正经的，这个图表告诉我们一个道理，那就是：伟大的小说是急不来的——或者你是能够癫狂地在几天之内写就一本224页的小说的约翰·波恩，这是慢不来的。不管是《冬天》还是下一本《消失的爱人》(吉莉安·弗林花了三年来写这本书)，总归是功到自然成的。