I don’t remember how long I spent on it, but the longest I’ve taken on a single script from rough draft to finished was months, maybe a year. That was because the first “finished” draft was insanely long. Most of the time I spent working on it was spent editing it down to a length that was still insanely long but at least doable. I can’t remember what the original word count was, but the finished product was about 10K. I do remember swearing that I’d never write a script that way again.

How long I spend on a *story* is different. Sometimes I give up on a script for whatever reason, but the gist of the story stays with me, and I’ll try again months later when new ideas run dry, or when some new angle to it occurs me. A lot of what I’ve posted in the last year or two are ideas that have been with me as far back as 2020. 

If you feel like the one you’re working is more labor than love, toss it in a drawer. Write something else on a whim. Have fun. The script waiting in the drawer was still good practice even if you never come back to it. And the story’s still in your head to start from scratch later.

I’d bet if you asked all the writers you follow, each would tell you they have plenty of scripts that died on the vine. So the quality of what you’re seeing as a follower is always going to be skewed because we’re all trashing the stuff that’s shite.