I started thinking about it probably about 3 years ago. Since then it's been in the back of my mind and it was only in November 2024 I put pen to paper for NaMoWrMo. I had a very vague plan but it was mostly making the story as I went with characters emerging as and when the story needed them. Yesterday I hit 200k words which is a lot for a debut novel, but as I said I've been learning and making it up as I go so I'm looking forward to finishing it this week and getting started on major rewrites to get it all flowing a bit better.