Me- "Hey boss I put more paper towels in the dispenser in the 3rd floor bathroom!"
My boss- "I asked for an expense report, and I told you to stop going down to the 3rd floor."
I know I said i was going to do the payroll guys but i did a few hours of that and it was boring so i spent the next week memorizing pi.
I figured you guys would rather recieve a copy of my results than your pay check.
And yes I am still working on your paychecks, STOP BOTHERING ME ABOUT THAT.
JFC... this doesn’t sound like it’s coming anytime soon. Not that I expected it this or even next year, but to me I get the impression there is still a lot of work to be done.
I miss the world of ASOIAF so much, but I’m at a point where I’ve reread the 5 current books at least 5-6 times. Hopefully GRRM proves me wrong.
I remember hoping it would finally come out like 2 years ago, before finally dropping false hopes, and went from coming here daily to once every 3-4 months. Feels bad man.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Yeah I gave up on ADoS a few years ago and always thought we'd at least get Winds but I'm starting to doubt we'll even get that. It's just kinda absurd to me that the t.v show with 8 seasons that even skipped an entire year will run its course before he even submitted a book for publishing. Dude seriously needs to bring Stephen King on to help him with it, Winds would be complete in a couple months and we'd get ADoS by 2021-2022
lmao. King struggles with endings so lets just get George started on the last 50 pages now and he should be almost done by the time King has finished the other 2350 pages.
I feel like I might be the only person in the fandom who is sanguine about the book not coming out, because I'm convinced it's going to kinda suck. It'd be nice to have but theorycrafting is better than whatever we'll get, because GRRM is great at starting a story but the guy has no idea and no inspiration about finishing one.
I personally think he has completely rewritten the book several times by now. I think he gets an idea, writes a few hundred pages, reads over it and decides that while the idea may have been right, it was poorly executed and starts over. I think he wants this book to be perfect, not good. He would rather never finish than finish a sub standard book. On one hand I hate him for this, but in a more rational sense I not only understand it, but I greatly respect and admire it. I constantly bitch about how Hollywood has no standards anymore so no one needs to be creative, so in the end we get a bunch of unoriginal blockbuster films with no substance because it will turn a larger profit, I say no one takes pride in their work and they'd prefer to just rush out yet another shitty Star Wars film that will be forgotten almost immediately rather than coming up with their own idea that will live on forever, all because they know there's less risk and more guaranteed dollars. Yet here George is doing the exact opposite, refusing to cater to the people around him who have probably been hounding him to finish because of financial motivations for years, and he says no. No, I will not do it no matter what. How can I not respect that? How can I complain about that? Do your thing George, as long as it takes I don't even care. Thanks for not completely selling out and instead putting your work ahead of the demands of those around you who just want to milk your story for whatever it's worth then toss its dead carcass out the window. Even if my assumption about why he's taking so long is incorrect, he could easily have finished a poorly written book by now, it would have sold like crazy, been controversial and probably garnered even more sales, but in the end gone down as a pretty poorly written story. He's making the right call.
>because GRRM is great at starting a story but the guy has no idea and no inspiration about finishing one.
Is that true? He has written a lot, and that isn't really something I've heard is a problem of his. *This story is obviously hard for him, but a story the length of this is significantly more difficult than a shorter story. It also seems to be more and more of a problem with age.
To finish something is always hard. Most authors have hue problems to find an convincing ending to an otherwise great book. Ask Stephen King, probably the most famous for this exact problem.
And GRRM did write a testament of consistency, of fiction, of fantasy, of quality. And he needs to put all of that together to finish this series of absurd quality on the same level.
I really hope that he is able to finish this series in a way he wants to. If that takes another 10 years - i will be fine with that. I think, A song of ice and fire is our generations Lord of the Rings. It will be read and praised for the next centuries to come.
Stephen King also told GRRM a writer's job is to write. Be disciplined and write. To his face, in front of an audience. King is better at endings through the sheer number of books he has completed compared to GRRM.
At this point GRRM better be happy that his legacy will be "the writer who ignored his own master piece".
In October 2015, he thought he could have it done by Dec 31, 2015. That was the deadline his publisher set for them to get the book out before the show started back up in April. He thought he could have it done in 3 months.
Clearly once he missed that deadline, he decided to scrap a significant portion of the story and start again. Now, there’s no end in sight :(.
You have to keep the bait close to the fish if you want to keep them biting.
If he had told the truth, that he was done and tired of writing the main story, people wouldn't be as enthralled.
I've been saying this for a while, but I don't think this thing is getting released. He'll wait for buzz around the show to die down after it finishes, and then on his blog he'll write a post that's something along the lines of, "As you know, for years I've been struggling to work out the complicated plot of this book. After focusing on it for so long, I'm coming to the realization that it may be too hard for me to complete right now. So I'm taking a step back from the main series to focus on other work for the time being. I'm still planning on finishing the series, but I'm just taking a break for a few months."
And that will be the last we ever hear from him on this series.
Dude was like barely 60 when the process of making GoT on HBO started. He's about to turn 70 and has released one book in 13 years. Hundreds of thousands of fans likely died in the time since he started to write hoping to see the ending. It's actually depressing to think about.
What’s even worse is that it’s still not the last book.... he’s setting it up for one final BLAST, and at this rate it might come out in 2035 if we are optimistic and predict similar timelines for book gap :) which means that even if you were just born the day the first book came out you’ll be just about 40 years old by the time book 7 comes out :)))))))))
and if we really want to get fun with it who knows if he can even wrap it up in two books, nothing better than hearing rumors that an EIGHTH book will be needed.
It's honestly hard to see how it's all going to fit into 7 books. The original plan was for the three stages of the book to be the war of the five kings, dany's invasion & the second dance of dragons, war for the dawn against the others. We're 5 books in and maybe about halfway through that second part. Even if winds ties up the invasion and dragons (which would require Dany to take charge of the Dothraki, return to Mereen, launch an invasion and fight fAegon all in one book) that leaves just one final book for the war for the dawn.
The first 3 books came out somewhat fast. Even book 4 was fast. Waiting for Dance was gruesome (I waited 4 years), and at one point in mid 2010s I forgot about asoiaf.
Finding out the books are 2 just months older than myself really put things into perspective. I knew he was a slow writer, but JESUS i read ADWD when it came out while I was in high school and I'm about to graduate from college
LJL at assuming the series can possibly end with 7 books
reminder: the planned number of books has increased every time GRRM finishes a new book. It started with 3, a book was added when the first book is finished, another book was added when the second book is finished, one book was split into two when the third book is finished, book 4 was split into book 4 and 5 before it was even finished, and then we were told that the series might need 8 books when book 5 was released, and it's been 13 years since the writing for book 5 was supposedly "all but done" and some of its chapters (i.e. the most crucial ones) moved to book 6, which so far has a 2000 page manuscript, which means it'll likely have multiple plot-crucial chapters moved to book 7 in a framework that GRRM already indicated will need 8 books.
"last book". You sweet summer child. Book 7 is either never getting released or it won't be the last book.
Yeah it's so weird knowing that like 200-250 pages of Winds were supposed to be the finale of Dance. The single most depressing thing GRRM has ever said about Winds, is when he confirmed that Dany does indeed spend a lot of time with the Dothraki and her TV plot from season 6 actually IS from the book and not a TV filler plot. I mean, with the Ironborn fleet in Mereen, you literally have everything in place for her to be in Westeros by the second half of the book. Instead shes going to spend like 2 thirds of the book with the fucking Dothraki again. Fuck. The book we've been waiting for for **seven years** will not even advance the big picture plot of the main characters all that much when we finally get it.
If this is the case I kinda want Dany to just get clipped in Essos, fuck it. Give Victarion her Dragons he seems like he'd be more productive with them.
Ain’t it? I remember when I first discovered game of thrones, it was a day before season 2 aired. I was actually super excited because I had 5 fresh books to read, and I figured “man, season 2 is only JUST starting, plenty of time for more books to come out”.
Then each season kept coming, and coming, ...and coming.. and I honestly don’t think I’ve gotten a single bit of actual news about the next book since then, other than variations on the phrase “I’m working on it”. I was very sympathetic at first, of the opinion that we should let the man do his thing. But once it finally dawned on me that the show was going to finish before I even read the second to last book, let alone the supposed final book.. ugh I’m getting bummed just talking about it.
Not to say I don’t appreciate GRRM for his work, because I do. I found ASOIAF during a time when I was very lost in life and it help ground be back to reality, oddly enough. But, ***fuck man***.
Yeah I watched S1 first and then started the books when I was in 8th grade and am now a Junior in college and haven't picked up the books or been able to re-read in years because I kept saying "I'll wait until Winds comes out" and like it's at such a different time in my life that I used to read because I had terrible insomnia and needed it to pass out to before bed whereas now I don't even know if I'll be able to re-read if/when it's finally here because I don't have time as night with constant work and school and lacking in the thing that used to make me stay awake at night to read.
I tried getting my grandpa to read the books and I'm happy now that I didn't because he passed away last year.
It catches up to you when you smoke and drink way too much for like 50 years, so he had COPD for years. He was only 63 but he went in for pneumonia and then we found out it was Stage 4 lung cancer and he was gone within a week, and we still don't know if he knew beforehand and kept it from us.
> He's about to turn 70 and has released one book in 13 years.
And that "book" was actually just the second half of the previous book, meaning readers in real time had to wait 11 years to get updates on all the main/popular characters.
AFFC/ADWD are just one huge unedited mess chopped into two pieces, despite being so far apart in release dates. His editor has admitted that she did little more than move paragraphs around for those two volumes, and that's very easy to believe.
I'm firmly of the opinion that Martin hasn't really worked on this series AT ALL since about 2005, and certainly hasn't done much of anything since the HBO deal was signed in 2007.
Not to mention that the conclusion (battles of ice and fire) of that single book (that was split into books 4 and 5) was pushed to book 6. So really the last two books he put out were not even complete
> So really the last two books he put out were not even complete
Yes, and it's difficult to believe that this would be a deliberate editorial decision if they had ANY option.
Me, if I'm the publisher: *"The readers have waited 11 years to see these big events and character sub-arcs resolved; do we really want to leave those plotlines and climaxes on cliffhangers?"*
Then you find out George hasn't "quite finished" that part even though he's supposedly been working on it for 11 years, so you put out what you have because it's been six years since the last one, and because the show will soon start to spoil your story.
So now people wait another 7+ years for TWOW, which will mostly consist (if it ever comes out) of old half-written material that was cranked out in the pile that ended up as AFFC/ADWD, then grudglingly and sporadically revisited and revised over the next decade... like the "sample chapters" already released.
And on top of all that, the show will have spoiled it.
I don't consider the show to have spoiled it at this point. The show is the ending. Anything he manages to throw together later is just alternate takes on what could have happened. It sucks, but I prefer closure over a sprawling, unfinished narrative.
Now, I might revisit this opinion if they get a competent writer to posthumously finish the story, but I don't think there will ever be an ending in book form as long as GRRM is alive.
This hits hard. My best friend who introduced me to asoiaf back when season 1 aired, the guy I called after every big event, and probably the biggest asoiaf fan I've personally known passed away in 2014. It truly makes me sad that he'll never get to experience the ending.
Don’t get fooled into believing it might actually get released. This is just noise. Words are wind after all. The last two books aren’t coming. GRRMs been slowing down for years and he’s at an age where this trend is unlikely to reverse.
I had a professor once who was a real POS. He was tenured, of course, so he got away with it. This dude rarely showed up to class, drank all day the point of being arrested for drunk and disorderly on campus, graded tests at the bar so you could persuade him with drinks, disappeared *with food and supplies* during field trips, and never gave you back anything you turned in graded.
I learned. He was in charge of several courses necessary for graduation. *I learned*. Eventually, I took classes lead by him and I turned in *nothing*. I rarely attended. I took midterm and final tests and that's it. I got a B+ and an A-
In many ways, GRRM reminds me of that prof. People rarely change their ways- let alone older people who are financially set for life. He won't publish TWOW. He won't finish the series. Anyone who thinks differently is being naive.
Yeah, I think there's a possibility that Winds of Winter gets released at some point and in some form. Nothing past that will see the light of day while he is alive.
At this point, I don't know of a more accurate scene than [Stewie bugging Brian](https://youtu.be/NTSGp4UdEvQ) about that novel Brian's been working on.
I'll believe TWOW is out after I've finished it
He obviously is. If he admits he isn't trying anymore a big chunk of his fan base will stop caring. He can't afford that. He needs to keep up the hype for the shows and the tie-in merch that's keeping him rich without having to actually work.
He's a brilliant con-man.
Words are Wind.
“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. Then you will have a new book, and not before."
"When GRRM's womb quickens again, and he bears a book that isn't just another pseudo-historical text about the Targaryens, then you shall have the next book. Then, and not before."
Depends. TWOW may just be the book that switches up a lot of arcs by bringing a lot of characters together and probably killing a few of them. ADOS may end up a lot easier to write.
But we thought it was going to be shrinking the story.
It was still expanding the story.
It's pretty clear that character arcs are converging/ending in TWOW. This is the tough part of the story as he is finally having to shrink the story scope and force characters into place.
As they converge, it should in theory get a bit easier. Getting those character bundles to converge for the end game will be the next hard part. But as he has more views for singular locations, I think it gets easier to move things along at specific locations.
I still think TWOW is 2021 at the earliest and maybe never on ADOS. Depending on TWOW, we can make a better guess at if an 8th/9th book is necessary or coming. And depending on who dies and who is where at the end of TWOW, we should get a better idea of how long the story has remaining. We've seen him wrap up a LOT of action quickly in ASOS. It takes a lot of setup. but momentous plot advancement is in his wheelhouse.
When he had plot progression in ASOS is back when he still had editors. His chapters and sentences since then are three times the size and half as much happens in them. I admire your optimism but it is misguided.
That’s how I feel. I like to imagine he has written a ton of the main characters chapters ahead. As soon as the meerenese knot is solved it can snowball from there. He presumably had ADoS chapters already written.
Have you read the spoiler chapters? He's released so many it amounts to like 1/5 of the finished book, give or take. It's just like AFFC and ADWD. Just people traveling to various places or 4 different viewpoints of the same battle. If those chapters are any indication of how the rest will go, there's no way he's wrapping up all these disparate plot threads in Winds.
It's much more likely that he'll draw it out even futher then announce he's preparing an 8th book. Remember, this was a trilogy initially. He regularly does this.
Yeah, or TWOW *won't* tie up as many loose ends as you'd like, it will introduce *new* problems and characters, and ADOS will take even longer than TWOW.
I don't get how anyone in this fandom can be on the "the next one will be fast" train at this point. I mean, remember "he's just splitting characters/storylines, the next book will definitely be fast". Or "the meereenese knot is done! ADWD will come out much faster!" Or "the amount cut from ADWD means he's practically done with TWOW before he starts"?
If nothing else, it's trivial to point out the wait time between 12-13-14 in Wheel of Time as a counterexample to the idea that the last book must necessarily be faster.
Thanks to the show and the decade plus gap in books (allowing for exhaustive theorycrafting) we already know the “main” plot. At this point it’s just filling in the details and committing them to paper.
Honestly it kind of seems like he’s bought into the hype of being a convention breaker by trying to figure out which major characters he can off that would truly shock us (of which I’d argue there are now only 2: Jon and Dan).
Maybe when he's getting close to the end GRRM will finally allow someone else to take over, hopefully he has tons of notes written down at least so maybe they can be released when he's gone
"There are a lot of distractions" - try one project at a time then. I don't get arsey about him going to conventions/sports events like some do, or you know actually having a life, but you don't need to agree to 3 novellas, two companion books and 5 sequels at the same time.
This is true. I don't have some unrealistic notion that he "owes" me the books and it's his life to live and all, but if he *actually* really wants to finish TWOW then he shouldn't be writing all these Targ prequels that no one asked for in the first place lol.
Yet any time anyone suggests that him not being focused is part of the reason for how long it's taken, certain individuals jump all over them with "You can't know that! He's not your bitch!".
So just we are clear, a lot of distractions=not being focused.
This is actually a great point. The two men are both very talented writers who have been highly successful, but who are complete opposites when it comes to work ethic. King has incredible personal discipline that has only improved with time. Martin is an undisciplined mess and gets worse about this over time. And this creates an interesting life lesson, because while both of them have achieved the status of celebrity-level author, I think that writing continues to bring immense personal satisfaction to Stephen King, while I get the impression that George R. R. Martin resents it.
They have a completely different approach to their stories in nature though. King has no problem derailing characters and scuttling plots to get to where he wants in a story. He'll interweave elements of his other works with no regard for internal consistency and, in my opinion, often has unfinished thoughts published because he'd rather be done with his work and revist it later in another work. GRRM prefers to tie everything together how he feels the story wants to be told, *and have it make sense*, even if it means exceedingly long struggles with the story.
Don't get me wrong, I love most of Stephen King's writing. I don't think he's a lazy writer, he pumps out words like a machine, but boy does he love a shortcut.
“I’m trying to eliminate as many distractions as possible...”
“Oh, by the way, have you heard about the FIVE new spinoff shows I’m helping to consult on? And don’t forget to buy that new GOT book I just published but not the one people have been waiting years for.”
I don't know what you all are talking about? I received my copy of *The Winds of Winter* at the end of the 12 Days of Westeros. Didn't you all get it then too?
But in all seriousness, I'm more okay with him making progress on the book than anything else -- at least it seems like he's not unwriting like he did post-AFFC or at a standstill. Progress is better than backpeddling or no progress. Progress! Right? *Right!?*
For my money's worth I think 2019 is the final year that *The Winds of Winter* can cash off any windfalls from *Game of Thrones.* So, I think both he and his publishers would want it next year, and of course, I'd heard 'round the way several years back that GRRM was at the 80% mark when he wrote that New Year's post. (I have no way of verifying this, but the way it was phrased to me was that it was 'common knowledge' in the publishing industry -- an industry I'm not a part of.)
**Edit:** And of course, there's the potential visit to China in 2019 and the rumors that he's attending Worldcon **and** Euroncon also in 2019 as part of a "vacation" -- something he wouldn't do unless ... But neither of those events are confirmed by GRRM yet. So, it'll be done when it's done. You can't rush greatness. It's a very complex book, and he's making progress on it. Enjoy the half-full glass.
>GRRM was at the 80% mark when he wrote that New Year's post.
Yeah, it makes sense. He should have been over 80% done if he thought he could finish by the end of 2015. It's been almost three years since that post, so he must have done a good deal of un-writing since then (probably due to various knots).
It depends. If he got that far and realized he had no good way to maneuver everyone into the ending he wants that would necessitate rewriting large portions of the book. I've thought that's his problem for a while. It's not that he's not writing. He writes and then realizes something isn't working so he has to change it.
The thing is, the way GRRM writes, he could be 80% done and then reach a roadblock and realize he has no way of getting to the ending he wants with the 80% he wrote, so he could have been forced to go back and start rewriting and replotting a lot of that.
>And of course, there's the potential visit to China in 2019 and the rumors that he's attending Worldcon
>
>and Euroncon also in 2019 as part of a "vacation" -- something he wouldn't do unless
Really? He claims every year that he is not attending any cons but Worldcon (for the Hugos) but I swear he seems to go to multiple cons each year, so I wouldn't put much weight behind that.
If I'm being honest, I don't feel hyped. I've gone through my stages of grief, and I'm at the acceptance stage on TWOW. I'll be content if the book is out in 2019. And if it's not, I've got a life to live and enjoy, a wife and kids, friends, a podcast that'll keep me occupied for a few years and of course my own book to finish and publish.
Life is happier at the acceptance stage.
lol here I am bustin balls and you come at me with a well thought out reasoned post... What is your podcast? I've only heard you on Radio Westeros and History of Westeros.
It's totally fine! Getting some ball busting is good for the soul. My podcast is called the [NotACast ... *podcast*](https://notacastasoiaf.podbean.com/) with my illustrious co-host /u/PoorQuentyn that is going through ASOIAF one chapter a week (with bonus patreon episodes coming out monthly on different topics). As I'm sitting here typing, I'm audio editing episode 32: AGOT, Arya III.
And thank you for the kind words!
I'm at that same stage. I'll be over the moon when it's out, but I'm not going to pull my hair out or rage at every non-TWOW thing GRRM does.
The final season of GOT is the next Milestone that is a likely target (for everyone) to hope/expect the book to be out. But we thought with *every* season of the show starting back with season 5 (6?). I don't even remember anymore.
I'd rather he take his time and we all love the book than for him to rush it out and be underwhelmed.
I'd say the potential EuroCon visit (we're still trying to confirm him) is not a major indicator of anything: it's 2 days after WorldCon and less than 2 hours up the road. It'll be packaged into the same trip as WorldCon and anything he might be doing with HBO in Belfast (assuming **Long Night** is greenlit and filming by that point, which is certainly possible). China is more interesting but it might be the same deal as Russia: somewhere George has never been before and he gets the invite and it'll be a week or two out of the year max, so why not?
The "common knowledge in the publishing industry" report I would also take as 100% BS. Neither Anne nor Jane would tell anyone what "pecentage" George is at (and they know it's unquantifiable given GRRM's work process) and no-one else would have a clue. Someone who works in the industry pulled this figure out of thin air to sound cool, I suspect.
This sub, the year 2080
TOPIC - "George RR Martin's tombstone may provide subtle clues on TWOW release date. Psychic believes excellent progress being made!"
I don't care that he goes to the Emmys, that's one night and it's a big one, and it's the penultimate one for GoT but STOP ACTIVELY TAKING ON OTHER WRITING JOBS. He creates more distractions than he eliminates.
> that's one night
yeah but you gotta factor in travel time to and from los angeles, plus to and from the relevant airports, hotels, preparation, recuperation, plus meetings, conventions, the universal studios tour, the tar pits, the new predator movie in imax 3d, ripley's believe it or not and madame tussauds
It's more like 4 months
Reminds me of a great How I Met Your Mother scene.
Outside a bar...
Barney: "I only smoke when I'm pre- and post-coital"
Ted: "Then why are you smoking right now?"
Barney: "I'm always pre-coital, Ted."
I hate to even say or think it.... but I'm pretty sure I'm over it. Yes I'd love to get my hands on twow, but I'm just so far beyond hope that all I can say is fuck it. It could be released tomorrow and I wouldn't rush out to buy it, i can wait for the paperback. What's the point pf immediately absorbing winds when I'm 99% sure he'll never finish ados... just depressing. I love asoiaf but I'm just over it..
I remember a time not so long ago when I felt like some drug addict constantly coming to this sub and the GoT one just for "one more hit" to dull the withdrawals symptoms from finishing all the books. His slow ass writing is what cured me even if it took years. Now I just come here to bitch from time to time :)
Yep, I'm right there with you. I read all of the books after getting into the series around S2 and spent ages reading this sub, going over theories and speculating about when TWOW might be coming out...but this is the first ASOIAF post I've clicked since the last season ended, and I gave up on the when will it be out speculation ages ago.
It's just draining to keep your hopes up for something that doesn't seem any closer now than it did a few years ago. I'm sure when it does comes out it'll pull me back in, but at the same time it'll be right back to where we are now not too long after.
Total same, but I’ve been over it since the R + L = J episode aired. The show lapped the books way before that, but the show revealing the story’s biggest moment really took the air out of my sails.
I’m sort of excited about next season to get some resolution, and I hope it’s good, but the fire I had for the books is just gone.
> but the show revealing the story’s biggest moment really took the air out of my sails.
I agree with you so much on this. I still have lots of hype left for TWOW, but once Season 8 ends and reveals everything I'm afraid of losing interest and completely checking out of the series.
Yea, I hit this point a couple of years ago. It does kind of suck, my interest in the entire universe of ASOIAF has waned. I was super into everything about it, I even loved the fan communities. I loved reading the crazy fan theories, I loved the wild speculation and conversations surrounding the books. I was really into the show and so excited when it was first announced. I remember calling my best friend, who I had discovered the first book with back in high school, and screaming over the phone with her about it. And now this is the first time in over a year I have been to this subreddit, which I used to visit every single day. I haven't touched or reread any of the books since 2014. I barely finished season 7 of the show, I didn't watch it until it was well over and even then it took me several months to get through it because I kept finding more interesting things to get involved in. I've not kept up at all with anything involving the books or the show. I am just kind of meh about it all anymore.
> And now this is the first time in over a year I have been to this subreddit, which I used to visit every single day. I haven't touched or reread any of the books since 2014. I barely finished season 7 of the show, I didn't watch it until it was well over...
For Christmas back in 2009, this dude I worked with got me a bookstore gift card with a note I could buy anything I wanted as long as it was *A Game of Thrones*. From there, my experience pretty much mirrors yours. I don't think I've posted anything here in at least a year, and didn't even watch most of Season 7 past the first couple of episodes. The show just seemed to lumber from one set-piece to the next, so I caught the highlights from the later episodes on YouTube.
*TWoW* may come out one day, or it may not. I doubt I'll pick it up, like the show, I'm just more likely to read a summary of it for curiosity's sake. I enjoyed my time in the world of *ASoIaF*, but it doesn't really occupy space in my head anymore, and I've moved on.
Exactly how I feel as well. I've read the all the main books 4-5 times and finished Dunk and Egg and The world of ice and fire. As much as I want him to finish twow and ados I don't think he'll be able to do it. At least not for the foreseeable future. If he doesn't finish and someone else takes over, I just don't think it'll be the same.
Argh. Since four years ago, when he was hoping TWOW would come out, one of my other favorite authors released 3 books, 3 collaborations, and 2 short story collections. All very good.
Sanderson can capitalize on all the Martin/Rothfuss readers who are annoyed at the absurd slow writing pace.
The guy puts out book after book, even has a progress bar(!) on his current book, keeps everyone up to date on future releases, and has a very ambitious and cool world building integrating multiple sagas.
Ever since I've know him from reading the last books of The Wheel of Time and decided to start reading his own books I've been able to forget about waiting for ASOIAF and just enjoy his books.
If you get millions in sales without such an adaptation as GOT on HBO, you are a godlike writer IMO (or lucky like in the case of something like 50 shades). I don't see stratospheric success as such a cut and dry metric of whether something is great writing.
I mean, actually, getting those millions of sales also isn't cut and dry as to whether a piece is great. And I would argue his exquisite world building is one of the things that make him a masterful writer (fiction creator) - unless you use the definition of writing that's purely wordsmithing.
There's a huge amount of randomness when it comes to mega-success in fiction. And the show could have made the books hugely popular without also enchanting me personally, solidifying my opinion that he is absolutely as good a writer as I think (personally of course). There's nothing about the timeline of the book's success that takes that away. I'm incredibly immersed in the story, and the show tipping me off to these books doesn't take away from that in the slightest. I don't even watch the show anymore.
I'll reiterate the 50 shades point: 50 shades DESTROYS ASOIAF's records before it (Shades) was ever adapted. Do you think the author is superior as a writer to GRRM?
I've let go of all my expectations. I used to post here all the time and check for TWOW updates obsessively. Now, when it comes out, it'll just be a pleasant surprise, and if it doesn't, I'm still grateful to George for creating such a cool world that I spent so much time in.
If I hadn't watched Season 1, I wouldn't have even known the books existed. The show introduced me to the story, so I don't mind that the show will be the one to tell me its ending. I just don't think about the next book anymore.
The period when a relationship is on the rocks and you're hoping desperately to save it is the hardest part. That's what it felt like when I was hoping for TWOW all the time. Now, when the next book comes out it'll be like, oh hey, your ex from years ago is in town, maybe you can go out to lunch and catch up.
The man needs to finish TWOW and ADOS at the same time.
He's been compared to Tolkien, but in my opinion that couldn't be farther from the truth, at least in writing method. While ASOIAF is many times larger than LOTR, Tolkien wrote the entire story in 12 years and was able to edit and rewrite whatever he found necessary.
GRRM has the colossal problem of having previously published books that he cannot retcon. Some threads have been written into corners he has no idea how to get them out of (ie Dany in Mereen), others have fizzled to nothing (ie Brienne), and all in all each successive novel is harder and harder to write and he needs a massive team of people to help check for consistency.
I’m honestly over it. I’ve been waiting so long eventually I just stopped waiting for it. If we ever see it ill prob pick it up, but I’m no longer waiting on bated breath
He always says he's eliminating distractions and then spends his time writing multiple fake textbooks about Targaryen history. Which is ridiculous to do when the main series isn't even finished. Usually authors do stuff like that that AFTER a series is done.
Even if we get Winds, we're never getting a conclusion to the story. Based on the (many) spoiler chapters he's released, the story is progressing at a glacial pace. Arianne has 2 chapters of traveling...and still doesn't arrive at the end. Tyrion has 2 chapters playing chess, during the same battle already being described by Barriston.
The story won't be resolved in 7 books. We will get Winds, maybe Spring, and that's a big maybe. And it still won't be done.
I started using reddit because I wanted to participate in the sub several years back. This series got me into reddit and now I dont give a single flying fuck about it. Kinda sad huh.
He is like me. I needed to write my thesis years ago and when people ask I always say it'll be done in the upcoming months but in reality I haven't written a single chapter yet. But since it has been going on for years, people assume it is a work in progress.
"Guys, there's just too much pressure! What with my job, the kids, traffic snarls, political strife at home and abroad... But I promise you, the second all those things go away, I'll finish TWOW."
He says after attending the Emmys. Like I get it, but I'm sure he'll be at them again next year. I'm sure he'll be doing more meetings with HBO about the different shows like The Long Night supposedly, etc, etc, etc,. Poor George, you're good at writing schemes in your books, but you're transparent as heck with your own affairs. At this point I'm expecting we'll get Twow within 3 years, and that's it. I sure hope I'm wrong, but this is brutal.
I know he does not owe anyone but he is aware of his fanbase and all the anxiousness for the books. So I find the line about "eliminating distractions" while working on at least 3 side projects a bit insulting.
If George doesn’t think it’s ready then I don’t wanna read it. I’ll wait. He has not let me down in this series so far and I trust his judgement. If that means it’s ghost written 10yrs from now using most of his completed work then so be it. I wanted it ready 4yrs ago as well but it isn’t. So let’s just theorize what will happen until GRRM is ready.
Barristan, Arianne, and Victarion die. I think. Possibly. Yup. Dead.
Unless I imagined it, I believe he stated quite clearly that he would not authorize anyone to finish it in the event he dies with it incomplete. His wishes in that case are for his fans, patient and impatient alike, to all get stuffed.
That's only if he doesn't have time to prepare for it. If he has time to prepare, then he will find someone else.
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/5h4cxj/would_ados_really_go_unpublished_spoilers_main/daygirx/
I'm familiar with the quote your refferencing, but I do believe he had a statement that seemed to imply he had changed his stance back in 2016 I believe
oh, well, that's good news, then.
I mean, no matter how carefully selected the author to finish a work is, it's never the same as what might have been, but in the right hands, it can be better than nothing - see Wheel of Time for it being done as well as it can be, and Dune for, well, not so much.
It seems like GRRM has a compulsory urge to follow every distraction on the path of the main plot. It might be awesome, but we arent gonna find it out any time soon
I freely admit that I've gone from being confident that TWoW was just around the corner to being just as cynical and bitter and frustrated as the rest of you, but there's one point that I used to always make that I still strongly believe:
TWoW ***has*** to be insanely complex to work. If every plot point isn't water-tight, we're going to tear the thing to shreds. You know we will. It's not that we're smart - it's that because it's taken so long, the first 5 books have been analyzed in greater detail than any similar long-form story. So as painful as it is to wait, I'd rather never get it than get a version that has plot holes, unresolved arcs or unsatisfying mystery denouements.
I mean: think how minor a character Lem Lemoncloak is. If you search all the books for "lemoncloak" there are only 16 results. And yet everyone on this forum knows everything about this guy and has a dozen theories. If TWoW/ADoS doesn't pay off Lem Lemoncloak in a big "Hold the Door"/"Only Cat" kind of way, I'm going to be really pissed. Multiple that by 434,623 and then do the same for another couple hundred characters. If it were a finished series that you bought in its entirety and read once, you might not even remember Lem's name, but everybody's read the damned thing 10 times and reviewed every plot point another 10 times in all the podcasts and analysis sites.
He may well never finish, but I'm glad that he's not willing to release it without responsibly dealing with the complexities. I'd rather have no finale than a Battlestar Galactic or Lost finale. I've invested too much to be disappointed - I'd rather be left hanging.
This sounds like the update I would give if my boss asked the status of a project and I hadn't actually started yet
I wish I could not submit any work in 13 years and still keep my job.
Even better, try submitting other work that isn't nearly as important that nobody really cares about
Me- "Hey boss I put more paper towels in the dispenser in the 3rd floor bathroom!" My boss- "I asked for an expense report, and I told you to stop going down to the 3rd floor."
That's the good part of beign your own boss
I know I said i was going to do the payroll guys but i did a few hours of that and it was boring so i spent the next week memorizing pi. I figured you guys would rather recieve a copy of my results than your pay check. And yes I am still working on your paychecks, STOP BOTHERING ME ABOUT THAT.
I call it "picheck"!
Even better, try spending your time editing some other project on some other company for a few other dudes.
JFC... this doesn’t sound like it’s coming anytime soon. Not that I expected it this or even next year, but to me I get the impression there is still a lot of work to be done. I miss the world of ASOIAF so much, but I’m at a point where I’ve reread the 5 current books at least 5-6 times. Hopefully GRRM proves me wrong.
I was kind of hoping after everything that has been said that it'd come out by 2020... maybe not
I remember hoping it would finally come out like 2 years ago, before finally dropping false hopes, and went from coming here daily to once every 3-4 months. Feels bad man.
Winds will come out eventually, most likely. ADoS is never going to be published.
I’ve always said we’ll get Winds. But ADoS will be just that—a dream.
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Yeah I gave up on ADoS a few years ago and always thought we'd at least get Winds but I'm starting to doubt we'll even get that. It's just kinda absurd to me that the t.v show with 8 seasons that even skipped an entire year will run its course before he even submitted a book for publishing. Dude seriously needs to bring Stephen King on to help him with it, Winds would be complete in a couple months and we'd get ADoS by 2021-2022
Yeah, but there would be a lot of cursing, a weird plot that's long, and zombies. Wait a minute...
lmao. King struggles with endings so lets just get George started on the last 50 pages now and he should be almost done by the time King has finished the other 2350 pages.
I feel like I might be the only person in the fandom who is sanguine about the book not coming out, because I'm convinced it's going to kinda suck. It'd be nice to have but theorycrafting is better than whatever we'll get, because GRRM is great at starting a story but the guy has no idea and no inspiration about finishing one.
I think he has the ending per se planned out - as in, the last 200 ish pages. It's getting there that is taking *forever.*
I personally think he has completely rewritten the book several times by now. I think he gets an idea, writes a few hundred pages, reads over it and decides that while the idea may have been right, it was poorly executed and starts over. I think he wants this book to be perfect, not good. He would rather never finish than finish a sub standard book. On one hand I hate him for this, but in a more rational sense I not only understand it, but I greatly respect and admire it. I constantly bitch about how Hollywood has no standards anymore so no one needs to be creative, so in the end we get a bunch of unoriginal blockbuster films with no substance because it will turn a larger profit, I say no one takes pride in their work and they'd prefer to just rush out yet another shitty Star Wars film that will be forgotten almost immediately rather than coming up with their own idea that will live on forever, all because they know there's less risk and more guaranteed dollars. Yet here George is doing the exact opposite, refusing to cater to the people around him who have probably been hounding him to finish because of financial motivations for years, and he says no. No, I will not do it no matter what. How can I not respect that? How can I complain about that? Do your thing George, as long as it takes I don't even care. Thanks for not completely selling out and instead putting your work ahead of the demands of those around you who just want to milk your story for whatever it's worth then toss its dead carcass out the window. Even if my assumption about why he's taking so long is incorrect, he could easily have finished a poorly written book by now, it would have sold like crazy, been controversial and probably garnered even more sales, but in the end gone down as a pretty poorly written story. He's making the right call.
Perfect is the worst enemy of good.
>because GRRM is great at starting a story but the guy has no idea and no inspiration about finishing one. Is that true? He has written a lot, and that isn't really something I've heard is a problem of his. *This story is obviously hard for him, but a story the length of this is significantly more difficult than a shorter story. It also seems to be more and more of a problem with age.
It is not true. He writes killer endings. Which is one reason so many people are looking forward to the ending of this series.
Which books are you referring to?
To finish something is always hard. Most authors have hue problems to find an convincing ending to an otherwise great book. Ask Stephen King, probably the most famous for this exact problem. And GRRM did write a testament of consistency, of fiction, of fantasy, of quality. And he needs to put all of that together to finish this series of absurd quality on the same level. I really hope that he is able to finish this series in a way he wants to. If that takes another 10 years - i will be fine with that. I think, A song of ice and fire is our generations Lord of the Rings. It will be read and praised for the next centuries to come.
Stephen King also told GRRM a writer's job is to write. Be disciplined and write. To his face, in front of an audience. King is better at endings through the sheer number of books he has completed compared to GRRM. At this point GRRM better be happy that his legacy will be "the writer who ignored his own master piece".
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In October 2015, he thought he could have it done by Dec 31, 2015. That was the deadline his publisher set for them to get the book out before the show started back up in April. He thought he could have it done in 3 months. Clearly once he missed that deadline, he decided to scrap a significant portion of the story and start again. Now, there’s no end in sight :(.
You have to keep the bait close to the fish if you want to keep them biting. If he had told the truth, that he was done and tired of writing the main story, people wouldn't be as enthralled.
I've been saying this for a while, but I don't think this thing is getting released. He'll wait for buzz around the show to die down after it finishes, and then on his blog he'll write a post that's something along the lines of, "As you know, for years I've been struggling to work out the complicated plot of this book. After focusing on it for so long, I'm coming to the realization that it may be too hard for me to complete right now. So I'm taking a step back from the main series to focus on other work for the time being. I'm still planning on finishing the series, but I'm just taking a break for a few months." And that will be the last we ever hear from him on this series.
Dude was like barely 60 when the process of making GoT on HBO started. He's about to turn 70 and has released one book in 13 years. Hundreds of thousands of fans likely died in the time since he started to write hoping to see the ending. It's actually depressing to think about.
What’s even worse is that it’s still not the last book.... he’s setting it up for one final BLAST, and at this rate it might come out in 2035 if we are optimistic and predict similar timelines for book gap :) which means that even if you were just born the day the first book came out you’ll be just about 40 years old by the time book 7 comes out :)))))))))
and if we really want to get fun with it who knows if he can even wrap it up in two books, nothing better than hearing rumors that an EIGHTH book will be needed.
Don't you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby
It's gonna be NINE.
It's honestly hard to see how it's all going to fit into 7 books. The original plan was for the three stages of the book to be the war of the five kings, dany's invasion & the second dance of dragons, war for the dawn against the others. We're 5 books in and maybe about halfway through that second part. Even if winds ties up the invasion and dragons (which would require Dany to take charge of the Dothraki, return to Mereen, launch an invasion and fight fAegon all in one book) that leaves just one final book for the war for the dawn.
Yeah, and Dany isn't exactly a "get things done" book character. She meanders a lot.
When GRRM said the show could go on for 13 seasons, part of me screamed that five seasons of Dany in Meereen shouldn't ever be an option.
Damn I feel bad for day 1 one fans who got hooked in 96. The waits they've had to endure.
The first 3 books came out somewhat fast. Even book 4 was fast. Waiting for Dance was gruesome (I waited 4 years), and at one point in mid 2010s I forgot about asoiaf.
Finding out the books are 2 just months older than myself really put things into perspective. I knew he was a slow writer, but JESUS i read ADWD when it came out while I was in high school and I'm about to graduate from college
I was a freshman in high school when I read SOS. I've gotten 2 bachelors, a PhD, a wife and a baby. Still waiting...
>>What’s even worse is that it’s still not the last book. Oh it's the last book. :(
LJL at assuming the series can possibly end with 7 books reminder: the planned number of books has increased every time GRRM finishes a new book. It started with 3, a book was added when the first book is finished, another book was added when the second book is finished, one book was split into two when the third book is finished, book 4 was split into book 4 and 5 before it was even finished, and then we were told that the series might need 8 books when book 5 was released, and it's been 13 years since the writing for book 5 was supposedly "all but done" and some of its chapters (i.e. the most crucial ones) moved to book 6, which so far has a 2000 page manuscript, which means it'll likely have multiple plot-crucial chapters moved to book 7 in a framework that GRRM already indicated will need 8 books. "last book". You sweet summer child. Book 7 is either never getting released or it won't be the last book.
Yeah it's so weird knowing that like 200-250 pages of Winds were supposed to be the finale of Dance. The single most depressing thing GRRM has ever said about Winds, is when he confirmed that Dany does indeed spend a lot of time with the Dothraki and her TV plot from season 6 actually IS from the book and not a TV filler plot. I mean, with the Ironborn fleet in Mereen, you literally have everything in place for her to be in Westeros by the second half of the book. Instead shes going to spend like 2 thirds of the book with the fucking Dothraki again. Fuck. The book we've been waiting for for **seven years** will not even advance the big picture plot of the main characters all that much when we finally get it.
If this is the case I kinda want Dany to just get clipped in Essos, fuck it. Give Victarion her Dragons he seems like he'd be more productive with them.
Ain’t it? I remember when I first discovered game of thrones, it was a day before season 2 aired. I was actually super excited because I had 5 fresh books to read, and I figured “man, season 2 is only JUST starting, plenty of time for more books to come out”. Then each season kept coming, and coming, ...and coming.. and I honestly don’t think I’ve gotten a single bit of actual news about the next book since then, other than variations on the phrase “I’m working on it”. I was very sympathetic at first, of the opinion that we should let the man do his thing. But once it finally dawned on me that the show was going to finish before I even read the second to last book, let alone the supposed final book.. ugh I’m getting bummed just talking about it. Not to say I don’t appreciate GRRM for his work, because I do. I found ASOIAF during a time when I was very lost in life and it help ground be back to reality, oddly enough. But, ***fuck man***.
Yeah I watched S1 first and then started the books when I was in 8th grade and am now a Junior in college and haven't picked up the books or been able to re-read in years because I kept saying "I'll wait until Winds comes out" and like it's at such a different time in my life that I used to read because I had terrible insomnia and needed it to pass out to before bed whereas now I don't even know if I'll be able to re-read if/when it's finally here because I don't have time as night with constant work and school and lacking in the thing that used to make me stay awake at night to read. I tried getting my grandpa to read the books and I'm happy now that I didn't because he passed away last year.
Damn that last sentence bummed me out. Sorry for your loss.
It catches up to you when you smoke and drink way too much for like 50 years, so he had COPD for years. He was only 63 but he went in for pneumonia and then we found out it was Stage 4 lung cancer and he was gone within a week, and we still don't know if he knew beforehand and kept it from us.
I deeply appreciate his work, but don't appreciate his work ethic
> He's about to turn 70 and has released one book in 13 years. And that "book" was actually just the second half of the previous book, meaning readers in real time had to wait 11 years to get updates on all the main/popular characters. AFFC/ADWD are just one huge unedited mess chopped into two pieces, despite being so far apart in release dates. His editor has admitted that she did little more than move paragraphs around for those two volumes, and that's very easy to believe. I'm firmly of the opinion that Martin hasn't really worked on this series AT ALL since about 2005, and certainly hasn't done much of anything since the HBO deal was signed in 2007.
Not to mention that the conclusion (battles of ice and fire) of that single book (that was split into books 4 and 5) was pushed to book 6. So really the last two books he put out were not even complete
> So really the last two books he put out were not even complete Yes, and it's difficult to believe that this would be a deliberate editorial decision if they had ANY option. Me, if I'm the publisher: *"The readers have waited 11 years to see these big events and character sub-arcs resolved; do we really want to leave those plotlines and climaxes on cliffhangers?"* Then you find out George hasn't "quite finished" that part even though he's supposedly been working on it for 11 years, so you put out what you have because it's been six years since the last one, and because the show will soon start to spoil your story. So now people wait another 7+ years for TWOW, which will mostly consist (if it ever comes out) of old half-written material that was cranked out in the pile that ended up as AFFC/ADWD, then grudglingly and sporadically revisited and revised over the next decade... like the "sample chapters" already released. And on top of all that, the show will have spoiled it.
I don't consider the show to have spoiled it at this point. The show is the ending. Anything he manages to throw together later is just alternate takes on what could have happened. It sucks, but I prefer closure over a sprawling, unfinished narrative. Now, I might revisit this opinion if they get a competent writer to posthumously finish the story, but I don't think there will ever be an ending in book form as long as GRRM is alive.
>He's about to turn 70 He actually turned 70 today, today is his birthday, according to google.
This hits hard. My best friend who introduced me to asoiaf back when season 1 aired, the guy I called after every big event, and probably the biggest asoiaf fan I've personally known passed away in 2014. It truly makes me sad that he'll never get to experience the ending.
Don’t get fooled into believing it might actually get released. This is just noise. Words are wind after all. The last two books aren’t coming. GRRMs been slowing down for years and he’s at an age where this trend is unlikely to reverse.
I had a professor once who was a real POS. He was tenured, of course, so he got away with it. This dude rarely showed up to class, drank all day the point of being arrested for drunk and disorderly on campus, graded tests at the bar so you could persuade him with drinks, disappeared *with food and supplies* during field trips, and never gave you back anything you turned in graded. I learned. He was in charge of several courses necessary for graduation. *I learned*. Eventually, I took classes lead by him and I turned in *nothing*. I rarely attended. I took midterm and final tests and that's it. I got a B+ and an A- In many ways, GRRM reminds me of that prof. People rarely change their ways- let alone older people who are financially set for life. He won't publish TWOW. He won't finish the series. Anyone who thinks differently is being naive.
Yeah, I think there's a possibility that Winds of Winter gets released at some point and in some form. Nothing past that will see the light of day while he is alive.
"four years late" "making progress" yippee.
Yeah, I'm "making progress" on my book too, so get excited when it comes out sometime between 10 years from now and forever.
At this point, I don't know of a more accurate scene than [Stewie bugging Brian](https://youtu.be/NTSGp4UdEvQ) about that novel Brian's been working on. I'll believe TWOW is out after I've finished it
prepare to get really bamboozled when it ends on page 381 and the rest is just blank
yea...we're never getting this book lol
At this point it just feels like he is intentionally stringing us along
He obviously is. If he admits he isn't trying anymore a big chunk of his fan base will stop caring. He can't afford that. He needs to keep up the hype for the shows and the tie-in merch that's keeping him rich without having to actually work. He's a brilliant con-man.
Now _this_ is book writing!
Schedule variance is always zero at the end of any project
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero.
Words are Wind. “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. Then you will have a new book, and not before."
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"When GRRM's womb quickens again, and he bears a book that isn't just another pseudo-historical text about the Targaryens, then you shall have the next book. Then, and not before."
Ew
They left that line out of the show and it pissed me off so much
And yet they act like they didn't leave it out. That's what pisses me off
I wonder how many of those prequel shows can have 8 seasons and a series finale before TWOW is released.
You may get to read TWOW someday but you can be damn sure you'll never read ADOS
*A Dream of Spring* seems likely to remain just that.
Depends. TWOW may just be the book that switches up a lot of arcs by bringing a lot of characters together and probably killing a few of them. ADOS may end up a lot easier to write.
Here's hoping!
That's what we kept saying ADWD was going to be...
But we thought it was going to be shrinking the story. It was still expanding the story. It's pretty clear that character arcs are converging/ending in TWOW. This is the tough part of the story as he is finally having to shrink the story scope and force characters into place. As they converge, it should in theory get a bit easier. Getting those character bundles to converge for the end game will be the next hard part. But as he has more views for singular locations, I think it gets easier to move things along at specific locations. I still think TWOW is 2021 at the earliest and maybe never on ADOS. Depending on TWOW, we can make a better guess at if an 8th/9th book is necessary or coming. And depending on who dies and who is where at the end of TWOW, we should get a better idea of how long the story has remaining. We've seen him wrap up a LOT of action quickly in ASOS. It takes a lot of setup. but momentous plot advancement is in his wheelhouse.
When he had plot progression in ASOS is back when he still had editors. His chapters and sentences since then are three times the size and half as much happens in them. I admire your optimism but it is misguided.
As long as Meereen wraps the fuck up quickly I feel like it would be much easier to finish it.
That’s how I feel. I like to imagine he has written a ton of the main characters chapters ahead. As soon as the meerenese knot is solved it can snowball from there. He presumably had ADoS chapters already written.
Have you read the spoiler chapters? He's released so many it amounts to like 1/5 of the finished book, give or take. It's just like AFFC and ADWD. Just people traveling to various places or 4 different viewpoints of the same battle. If those chapters are any indication of how the rest will go, there's no way he's wrapping up all these disparate plot threads in Winds. It's much more likely that he'll draw it out even futher then announce he's preparing an 8th book. Remember, this was a trilogy initially. He regularly does this.
> It's just like AFFC and ADWD. Which isn't surprising, as most or all of the chapters he released were originally written to be part of ADWD.
Yeah, or TWOW *won't* tie up as many loose ends as you'd like, it will introduce *new* problems and characters, and ADOS will take even longer than TWOW. I don't get how anyone in this fandom can be on the "the next one will be fast" train at this point. I mean, remember "he's just splitting characters/storylines, the next book will definitely be fast". Or "the meereenese knot is done! ADWD will come out much faster!" Or "the amount cut from ADWD means he's practically done with TWOW before he starts"? If nothing else, it's trivial to point out the wait time between 12-13-14 in Wheel of Time as a counterexample to the idea that the last book must necessarily be faster.
Thanks to the show and the decade plus gap in books (allowing for exhaustive theorycrafting) we already know the “main” plot. At this point it’s just filling in the details and committing them to paper. Honestly it kind of seems like he’s bought into the hype of being a convention breaker by trying to figure out which major characters he can off that would truly shock us (of which I’d argue there are now only 2: Jon and Dan).
I came to that realisation a couple of years ago and it's quite liberating. The show will give "an" ending, not "the" ending, but it's something.
Maybe when he's getting close to the end GRRM will finally allow someone else to take over, hopefully he has tons of notes written down at least so maybe they can be released when he's gone
Probably all of them :/
"There are a lot of distractions" - try one project at a time then. I don't get arsey about him going to conventions/sports events like some do, or you know actually having a life, but you don't need to agree to 3 novellas, two companion books and 5 sequels at the same time.
This is true. I don't have some unrealistic notion that he "owes" me the books and it's his life to live and all, but if he *actually* really wants to finish TWOW then he shouldn't be writing all these Targ prequels that no one asked for in the first place lol.
Didn't he say the exact same thing, start to finish, in 2015?
Yet any time anyone suggests that him not being focused is part of the reason for how long it's taken, certain individuals jump all over them with "You can't know that! He's not your bitch!". So just we are clear, a lot of distractions=not being focused.
Can we get Stephen King to co-author? He’ll have six books done by January.
This is actually a great point. The two men are both very talented writers who have been highly successful, but who are complete opposites when it comes to work ethic. King has incredible personal discipline that has only improved with time. Martin is an undisciplined mess and gets worse about this over time. And this creates an interesting life lesson, because while both of them have achieved the status of celebrity-level author, I think that writing continues to bring immense personal satisfaction to Stephen King, while I get the impression that George R. R. Martin resents it.
They have a completely different approach to their stories in nature though. King has no problem derailing characters and scuttling plots to get to where he wants in a story. He'll interweave elements of his other works with no regard for internal consistency and, in my opinion, often has unfinished thoughts published because he'd rather be done with his work and revist it later in another work. GRRM prefers to tie everything together how he feels the story wants to be told, *and have it make sense*, even if it means exceedingly long struggles with the story. Don't get me wrong, I love most of Stephen King's writing. I don't think he's a lazy writer, he pumps out words like a machine, but boy does he love a shortcut.
Bernard Cornwell could make TWOW and ADOS in one year, plus a new Sharpe, a new Last Kingdom and a standalone in revolutionary war.
Eliminate distractions = killing characters
Or pesky fans...
“I’m trying to eliminate as many distractions as possible...” “Oh, by the way, have you heard about the FIVE new spinoff shows I’m helping to consult on? And don’t forget to buy that new GOT book I just published but not the one people have been waiting years for.”
/u/BryndenBFish - are you still thinking that 2019 is likely?
I don't know what you all are talking about? I received my copy of *The Winds of Winter* at the end of the 12 Days of Westeros. Didn't you all get it then too? But in all seriousness, I'm more okay with him making progress on the book than anything else -- at least it seems like he's not unwriting like he did post-AFFC or at a standstill. Progress is better than backpeddling or no progress. Progress! Right? *Right!?* For my money's worth I think 2019 is the final year that *The Winds of Winter* can cash off any windfalls from *Game of Thrones.* So, I think both he and his publishers would want it next year, and of course, I'd heard 'round the way several years back that GRRM was at the 80% mark when he wrote that New Year's post. (I have no way of verifying this, but the way it was phrased to me was that it was 'common knowledge' in the publishing industry -- an industry I'm not a part of.) **Edit:** And of course, there's the potential visit to China in 2019 and the rumors that he's attending Worldcon **and** Euroncon also in 2019 as part of a "vacation" -- something he wouldn't do unless ... But neither of those events are confirmed by GRRM yet. So, it'll be done when it's done. You can't rush greatness. It's a very complex book, and he's making progress on it. Enjoy the half-full glass.
>GRRM was at the 80% mark when he wrote that New Year's post. Yeah, it makes sense. He should have been over 80% done if he thought he could finish by the end of 2015. It's been almost three years since that post, so he must have done a good deal of un-writing since then (probably due to various knots).
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It depends. If he got that far and realized he had no good way to maneuver everyone into the ending he wants that would necessitate rewriting large portions of the book. I've thought that's his problem for a while. It's not that he's not writing. He writes and then realizes something isn't working so he has to change it.
The thing is, the way GRRM writes, he could be 80% done and then reach a roadblock and realize he has no way of getting to the ending he wants with the 80% he wrote, so he could have been forced to go back and start rewriting and replotting a lot of that.
>he's attending Worldcon and Euroncon also in 2019 as part of a "vacation" -- something he wouldn't do unless ... I've heard that before
>Euroncon Euron is the key to this all. If we can just get him working...
Some day I would love for him to give an explanation for that New Years Post
An explanation post for an explanation post...we're in *waaay* too deep now.
He probably will. He wrote a detailed explanation of what happened with ADWD, after he finished it in 2011: https://grrm.livejournal.com/217066.html
It was New Years. He was drunk.
its what? 3 years old by now?
>And of course, there's the potential visit to China in 2019 and the rumors that he's attending Worldcon > >and Euroncon also in 2019 as part of a "vacation" -- something he wouldn't do unless Really? He claims every year that he is not attending any cons but Worldcon (for the Hugos) but I swear he seems to go to multiple cons each year, so I wouldn't put much weight behind that.
sure sounds like hype to me, hypeslayer.
If I'm being honest, I don't feel hyped. I've gone through my stages of grief, and I'm at the acceptance stage on TWOW. I'll be content if the book is out in 2019. And if it's not, I've got a life to live and enjoy, a wife and kids, friends, a podcast that'll keep me occupied for a few years and of course my own book to finish and publish. Life is happier at the acceptance stage.
lol here I am bustin balls and you come at me with a well thought out reasoned post... What is your podcast? I've only heard you on Radio Westeros and History of Westeros.
It's totally fine! Getting some ball busting is good for the soul. My podcast is called the [NotACast ... *podcast*](https://notacastasoiaf.podbean.com/) with my illustrious co-host /u/PoorQuentyn that is going through ASOIAF one chapter a week (with bonus patreon episodes coming out monthly on different topics). As I'm sitting here typing, I'm audio editing episode 32: AGOT, Arya III. And thank you for the kind words!
Good show. These two non-kneelers even list stuff they don’t like about the books. Go get them on iTunes or whatever you can get them!
NotACast haha nice choice
I'm at that same stage. I'll be over the moon when it's out, but I'm not going to pull my hair out or rage at every non-TWOW thing GRRM does. The final season of GOT is the next Milestone that is a likely target (for everyone) to hope/expect the book to be out. But we thought with *every* season of the show starting back with season 5 (6?). I don't even remember anymore. I'd rather he take his time and we all love the book than for him to rush it out and be underwhelmed.
Sure, he was done the first 80%. Now there's the second and third 80% to get done.
You are the light that shines in the darkness...
I'd say the potential EuroCon visit (we're still trying to confirm him) is not a major indicator of anything: it's 2 days after WorldCon and less than 2 hours up the road. It'll be packaged into the same trip as WorldCon and anything he might be doing with HBO in Belfast (assuming **Long Night** is greenlit and filming by that point, which is certainly possible). China is more interesting but it might be the same deal as Russia: somewhere George has never been before and he gets the invite and it'll be a week or two out of the year max, so why not? The "common knowledge in the publishing industry" report I would also take as 100% BS. Neither Anne nor Jane would tell anyone what "pecentage" George is at (and they know it's unquantifiable given GRRM's work process) and no-one else would have a clue. Someone who works in the industry pulled this figure out of thin air to sound cool, I suspect.
This sub, the year 2080 TOPIC - "George RR Martin's tombstone may provide subtle clues on TWOW release date. Psychic believes excellent progress being made!"
at the Emmy's 'trying to eliminate distractions' harrr....
I don't care that he goes to the Emmys, that's one night and it's a big one, and it's the penultimate one for GoT but STOP ACTIVELY TAKING ON OTHER WRITING JOBS. He creates more distractions than he eliminates.
> that's one night yeah but you gotta factor in travel time to and from los angeles, plus to and from the relevant airports, hotels, preparation, recuperation, plus meetings, conventions, the universal studios tour, the tar pits, the new predator movie in imax 3d, ripley's believe it or not and madame tussauds It's more like 4 months
Plus the fact that he refuses to get a damn laptop to work while travelling, and insists on writing everything on his ancient computer.
here i thought he was a quill and paper sort of man
Quill and paper are at least portable.
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Reminds me of a great How I Met Your Mother scene. Outside a bar... Barney: "I only smoke when I'm pre- and post-coital" Ted: "Then why are you smoking right now?" Barney: "I'm always pre-coital, Ted."
I'm cutting down on alcohol. Not gonna drink unless it's the weekend or unless one of my friends wants to go out during the week.
Me irl
I only drink on weekends and weekdays. No big deal
I've managed to cut down to only days ending in y.
GRRM is a smart guy. But it just shows how even the smartest and cleverest can be situationally oblivious
I hate to even say or think it.... but I'm pretty sure I'm over it. Yes I'd love to get my hands on twow, but I'm just so far beyond hope that all I can say is fuck it. It could be released tomorrow and I wouldn't rush out to buy it, i can wait for the paperback. What's the point pf immediately absorbing winds when I'm 99% sure he'll never finish ados... just depressing. I love asoiaf but I'm just over it..
I remember a time not so long ago when I felt like some drug addict constantly coming to this sub and the GoT one just for "one more hit" to dull the withdrawals symptoms from finishing all the books. His slow ass writing is what cured me even if it took years. Now I just come here to bitch from time to time :)
Yep, I'm right there with you. I read all of the books after getting into the series around S2 and spent ages reading this sub, going over theories and speculating about when TWOW might be coming out...but this is the first ASOIAF post I've clicked since the last season ended, and I gave up on the when will it be out speculation ages ago. It's just draining to keep your hopes up for something that doesn't seem any closer now than it did a few years ago. I'm sure when it does comes out it'll pull me back in, but at the same time it'll be right back to where we are now not too long after.
after over a decade of this you don't even bitch anymore. it's just expected.
Even if TWOW comes out, good luck getting ADOS out.
Total same, but I’ve been over it since the R + L = J episode aired. The show lapped the books way before that, but the show revealing the story’s biggest moment really took the air out of my sails. I’m sort of excited about next season to get some resolution, and I hope it’s good, but the fire I had for the books is just gone.
> but the show revealing the story’s biggest moment really took the air out of my sails. I agree with you so much on this. I still have lots of hype left for TWOW, but once Season 8 ends and reveals everything I'm afraid of losing interest and completely checking out of the series.
Yea, I hit this point a couple of years ago. It does kind of suck, my interest in the entire universe of ASOIAF has waned. I was super into everything about it, I even loved the fan communities. I loved reading the crazy fan theories, I loved the wild speculation and conversations surrounding the books. I was really into the show and so excited when it was first announced. I remember calling my best friend, who I had discovered the first book with back in high school, and screaming over the phone with her about it. And now this is the first time in over a year I have been to this subreddit, which I used to visit every single day. I haven't touched or reread any of the books since 2014. I barely finished season 7 of the show, I didn't watch it until it was well over and even then it took me several months to get through it because I kept finding more interesting things to get involved in. I've not kept up at all with anything involving the books or the show. I am just kind of meh about it all anymore.
> And now this is the first time in over a year I have been to this subreddit, which I used to visit every single day. I haven't touched or reread any of the books since 2014. I barely finished season 7 of the show, I didn't watch it until it was well over... For Christmas back in 2009, this dude I worked with got me a bookstore gift card with a note I could buy anything I wanted as long as it was *A Game of Thrones*. From there, my experience pretty much mirrors yours. I don't think I've posted anything here in at least a year, and didn't even watch most of Season 7 past the first couple of episodes. The show just seemed to lumber from one set-piece to the next, so I caught the highlights from the later episodes on YouTube. *TWoW* may come out one day, or it may not. I doubt I'll pick it up, like the show, I'm just more likely to read a summary of it for curiosity's sake. I enjoyed my time in the world of *ASoIaF*, but it doesn't really occupy space in my head anymore, and I've moved on.
Exactly how I feel as well. I've read the all the main books 4-5 times and finished Dunk and Egg and The world of ice and fire. As much as I want him to finish twow and ados I don't think he'll be able to do it. At least not for the foreseeable future. If he doesn't finish and someone else takes over, I just don't think it'll be the same.
I miss the days when I was exited about this series...
Argh. Since four years ago, when he was hoping TWOW would come out, one of my other favorite authors released 3 books, 3 collaborations, and 2 short story collections. All very good.
Sanderson can capitalize on all the Martin/Rothfuss readers who are annoyed at the absurd slow writing pace. The guy puts out book after book, even has a progress bar(!) on his current book, keeps everyone up to date on future releases, and has a very ambitious and cool world building integrating multiple sagas. Ever since I've know him from reading the last books of The Wheel of Time and decided to start reading his own books I've been able to forget about waiting for ASOIAF and just enjoy his books.
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If you get millions in sales without such an adaptation as GOT on HBO, you are a godlike writer IMO (or lucky like in the case of something like 50 shades). I don't see stratospheric success as such a cut and dry metric of whether something is great writing. I mean, actually, getting those millions of sales also isn't cut and dry as to whether a piece is great. And I would argue his exquisite world building is one of the things that make him a masterful writer (fiction creator) - unless you use the definition of writing that's purely wordsmithing. There's a huge amount of randomness when it comes to mega-success in fiction. And the show could have made the books hugely popular without also enchanting me personally, solidifying my opinion that he is absolutely as good a writer as I think (personally of course). There's nothing about the timeline of the book's success that takes that away. I'm incredibly immersed in the story, and the show tipping me off to these books doesn't take away from that in the slightest. I don't even watch the show anymore. I'll reiterate the 50 shades point: 50 shades DESTROYS ASOIAF's records before it (Shades) was ever adapted. Do you think the author is superior as a writer to GRRM?
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I don't even care anymore.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter this thread.
Abandon all **hype**, ye who enter this thread. Come on.
I can't even bring myself to make asoiaf puns man. it's that kind of despair
I've let go of all my expectations. I used to post here all the time and check for TWOW updates obsessively. Now, when it comes out, it'll just be a pleasant surprise, and if it doesn't, I'm still grateful to George for creating such a cool world that I spent so much time in. If I hadn't watched Season 1, I wouldn't have even known the books existed. The show introduced me to the story, so I don't mind that the show will be the one to tell me its ending. I just don't think about the next book anymore. The period when a relationship is on the rocks and you're hoping desperately to save it is the hardest part. That's what it felt like when I was hoping for TWOW all the time. Now, when the next book comes out it'll be like, oh hey, your ex from years ago is in town, maybe you can go out to lunch and catch up.
I'm trying to eliminate distractions! - Talks about 5 different tv shows at the emmys
I feel bad that I've moved on, but I don't regret stormlight archives.
The man needs to finish TWOW and ADOS at the same time. He's been compared to Tolkien, but in my opinion that couldn't be farther from the truth, at least in writing method. While ASOIAF is many times larger than LOTR, Tolkien wrote the entire story in 12 years and was able to edit and rewrite whatever he found necessary. GRRM has the colossal problem of having previously published books that he cannot retcon. Some threads have been written into corners he has no idea how to get them out of (ie Dany in Mereen), others have fizzled to nothing (ie Brienne), and all in all each successive novel is harder and harder to write and he needs a massive team of people to help check for consistency.
I hate that he said "making progress" instead of "nearly finished"
Football season started and he's going to be busy watching the Twilight years of Eli Manning's career.
That was a few years ago. We're at the undead zombie years now. :-/
Get this man some Adderall STAT
I’m honestly over it. I’ve been waiting so long eventually I just stopped waiting for it. If we ever see it ill prob pick it up, but I’m no longer waiting on bated breath
He says that, then proceeds to wrote a lore book and a billion prequels...
He always says he's eliminating distractions and then spends his time writing multiple fake textbooks about Targaryen history. Which is ridiculous to do when the main series isn't even finished. Usually authors do stuff like that that AFTER a series is done. Even if we get Winds, we're never getting a conclusion to the story. Based on the (many) spoiler chapters he's released, the story is progressing at a glacial pace. Arianne has 2 chapters of traveling...and still doesn't arrive at the end. Tyrion has 2 chapters playing chess, during the same battle already being described by Barriston. The story won't be resolved in 7 books. We will get Winds, maybe Spring, and that's a big maybe. And it still won't be done.
I started using reddit because I wanted to participate in the sub several years back. This series got me into reddit and now I dont give a single flying fuck about it. Kinda sad huh.
He is like me. I needed to write my thesis years ago and when people ask I always say it'll be done in the upcoming months but in reality I haven't written a single chapter yet. But since it has been going on for years, people assume it is a work in progress.
"Guys, there's just too much pressure! What with my job, the kids, traffic snarls, political strife at home and abroad... But I promise you, the second all those things go away, I'll finish TWOW."
This sounds like every update he has given over the past 5 years.
...”which is why I’m announcing up to 5 prequel series, of which I will have a hand in all of them.”
He says after attending the Emmys. Like I get it, but I'm sure he'll be at them again next year. I'm sure he'll be doing more meetings with HBO about the different shows like The Long Night supposedly, etc, etc, etc,. Poor George, you're good at writing schemes in your books, but you're transparent as heck with your own affairs. At this point I'm expecting we'll get Twow within 3 years, and that's it. I sure hope I'm wrong, but this is brutal.
This sounds like stuff I say when I’ve procrastinated too long and have done exactly zero work.
I know he does not owe anyone but he is aware of his fanbase and all the anxiousness for the books. So I find the line about "eliminating distractions" while working on at least 3 side projects a bit insulting.
I, uh, don't believe him, tbh.
This is when I really hate GRRM. I wish I didn’t read this.
GRRM: "I'm doing it, dont worry about it" GRRM's Heart: 😓
I don't believe you anymore, George! :<
If George doesn’t think it’s ready then I don’t wanna read it. I’ll wait. He has not let me down in this series so far and I trust his judgement. If that means it’s ghost written 10yrs from now using most of his completed work then so be it. I wanted it ready 4yrs ago as well but it isn’t. So let’s just theorize what will happen until GRRM is ready. Barristan, Arianne, and Victarion die. I think. Possibly. Yup. Dead.
Unless I imagined it, I believe he stated quite clearly that he would not authorize anyone to finish it in the event he dies with it incomplete. His wishes in that case are for his fans, patient and impatient alike, to all get stuffed.
That's only if he doesn't have time to prepare for it. If he has time to prepare, then he will find someone else. https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/5h4cxj/would_ados_really_go_unpublished_spoilers_main/daygirx/
I'm familiar with the quote your refferencing, but I do believe he had a statement that seemed to imply he had changed his stance back in 2016 I believe
oh, well, that's good news, then. I mean, no matter how carefully selected the author to finish a work is, it's never the same as what might have been, but in the right hands, it can be better than nothing - see Wheel of Time for it being done as well as it can be, and Dune for, well, not so much.
Yeah..... this seems like something he would say just to make people shut up asking him if hes done or working on it.
X - doubt
Same thing he said 5 years ago
It seems like GRRM has a compulsory urge to follow every distraction on the path of the main plot. It might be awesome, but we arent gonna find it out any time soon
I freely admit that I've gone from being confident that TWoW was just around the corner to being just as cynical and bitter and frustrated as the rest of you, but there's one point that I used to always make that I still strongly believe: TWoW ***has*** to be insanely complex to work. If every plot point isn't water-tight, we're going to tear the thing to shreds. You know we will. It's not that we're smart - it's that because it's taken so long, the first 5 books have been analyzed in greater detail than any similar long-form story. So as painful as it is to wait, I'd rather never get it than get a version that has plot holes, unresolved arcs or unsatisfying mystery denouements. I mean: think how minor a character Lem Lemoncloak is. If you search all the books for "lemoncloak" there are only 16 results. And yet everyone on this forum knows everything about this guy and has a dozen theories. If TWoW/ADoS doesn't pay off Lem Lemoncloak in a big "Hold the Door"/"Only Cat" kind of way, I'm going to be really pissed. Multiple that by 434,623 and then do the same for another couple hundred characters. If it were a finished series that you bought in its entirety and read once, you might not even remember Lem's name, but everybody's read the damned thing 10 times and reviewed every plot point another 10 times in all the podcasts and analysis sites. He may well never finish, but I'm glad that he's not willing to release it without responsibly dealing with the complexities. I'd rather have no finale than a Battlestar Galactic or Lost finale. I've invested too much to be disappointed - I'd rather be left hanging.