Update on the "Winds"

[Calibandar]

If he had 1300, or 1200, or 1100, or 1000 right now, or maybe even less, he would probably publish just to stay ahead of HBO.  In any event, I'm pretty sure "hundreds" means pretty much what it implies ... less than a thousand.

But that can't be right. If he really has less than 1000 pages now there is no way he would have been saying to himself in May that he could be done by October, or think in late September that he'd be done by Christmas. That would mean that at those points he still had 400 or 500 manuscript pages to go in the space of 3 or 4 months. That seems absurdly optimistic even for someone who is bad at estimating when he will finish. He's got to have a 1000 pages by now, or more, for him to now think that the book is "months away, if the writing goes well".

 

I'm merely reading what Martin wrote:

Martin was born on September 20. So basically, at the end of September, he thought that three months would be enough to finish the book.

Now, I understand that he's been terrible (to say the least) with estimates in the past, so people don't trust him anymore.
Fair enough.

I don't know what Martin thought or thinks he can achieve in three months. I understand that, given his previous screw-ups, one would take any estimate with a lot of salt. But three months really isn't that much, so I think a publication in 2016 (or early 2017) seems reasonable.

 

And I'd like to take those hopeful signs and agree with them. The only thing is that he also said that the "book is still months away, and that is if the writing goes well". That was a rather more somber view of the situation that seemed to suggest that he is not close to finishing. And that is a worry. His general tone is not optimistic and speaks about him no longer looking at deadlines.

 

 

[Faint]

But that can't be right. If he really has less than 1000 pages now there is no way he would have been saying to himself in May that he could be done by October, or think in late September that he'd be done by Christmas. That would mean that at those points he still had 400 or 500 manuscript pages to go in the space of 3 or 4 months. That seems absurdly optimistic even for someone who is bad at estimating when he will finish. He's got to have a 1000 pages by now, or more, for him to now think that the book is "months away, if the writing goes well".

Keep in mind what Martin was telling himself (and, in some cases, us) about the progress of A Dance with Dragons from 2005 through 2008, or the progress of the television adaption from 2011 through 2015. He is optimistic to an absurd degree which, not surprisingly, has the corresponding effect of bringing him crashing down when faced with reality (see Not a Blog, Jan. 2nd, 2016 at 12:24 AM). 

[DreamSongs]

It comes out when it comes out.  I would rather have a book that he put his heart and soul into his storytelling than a book written to appease a fickle fandom.

 

[Cas Stark]

I would rather have a GOOD book.  And in my analysis, the longer he takes, the worse the novels have gotten.  And he put out Feast to appease the readers and his publisher, I would guess.  But this idea of GRRM taking as long as he needs to is stuff that people are making up to make themselves feel better, since history shows the longer he goes, the more disjointed the product is.  He needs less time to change his mind and rewrite unimportant chapters, not more.

Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but GRRM being indulged and handled with care has only harmed him. 

[Tagganaro]

Haven't been on here in a while but had to come back on when I heard the announcement.  The crazy/sad thing is I wasn't the least bit surprised.  I'm just very disappointed in all the delays, and my biggest worry is that we never get to see the conclusion.  While I honestly enjoyed ADWD, I also couldn't believe all the digressions that were taking place.  To me it was very revealing of the trouble GRRM had in wrapping up this story (or beginning to wrap it up).  I think all the superfluous POVs and locations have taken over the core story at this point.  GRRM's famous (or infamous) improvisation has him going off in 1000 different directions at once.  In other words, he's lost the story.  

This goes back to AFFC and ADWD, but I really wish early in the process post-ASOS, an editor or the like put their foot down and told GRRM this wasn't gonna work.  Introducing that many new characters and locations when he's already aware of the gigantic growth the original story has taken was always gonna be a tough task to work with.  Having to cut out a climax of a story, and having to separate POV characters, and then admitting why, was highly problematic.

It seems to me it has only gotten worse since then.  Hopefully GRRM can get the story back and be able to finish it.  

 

[Cas Stark]

I agree, he needed a dose of tough love somewhere in the 2003-2004 era, to prevent him going off track in the first place. 

[The Dragon has three heads]

Shock 

Horror.

[ChillyPolly]

But that can't be right. If he really has less than 1000 pages now there is no way he would have been saying to himself in May that he could be done by October, or think in late September that he'd be done by Christmas. That would mean that at those points he still had 400 or 500 manuscript pages to go in the space of 3 or 4 months. That seems absurdly optimistic even for someone who is bad at estimating when he will finish. He's got to have a 1000 pages by now, or more, for him to now think that the book is "months away, if the writing goes well".

It can be right.  I am reasonably certain it IS right.

Your first mistake is to assume he told himself in May that he could have a 1,500 manuscript page book done by October, or that he told himself in September that he could finish 1,500 manuscript pages by Christmas.  He never said that.  He NEVER made any binding promises that the book would be 1,500 manuscript pages long, and certainly, maximum length assumes a lesser priority when you are trying to stay ahead of HBO to avoid spoilers - which had now become the concern.  Maybe 900 manuscript pages was the most he hoped to have - the shortest book yet, but forgiveable if he's trying to stay ahead of the latest season.  Or maybe he hoped we'd be satisfied with 800.

Also, I find nothing incredible about GRRM thinking to himself that he can write 500 manuscript pages in 3 months if he avoids distractions and knuckles down.  That's what procrastinators do.  They fantasize about how much work they can get done when they finally knuckle down.  And then when they knuckle down, it is harder than they had hoped.  Nor do I see anything inappropriate about trying to psych oneself up to get alot of work done in a short time.

And there are times, not too long ago, when he has done close to that.  For instance, he has reported he wrote nearly 500 pages in the 4 months between December, 2010 and April 2011. 

And let's recall, he did not actually make any promise or prediction in May that he would get it done in 5 months.  Nor did he publicly announce in September that he could get it done in 3 months.  Why not?  Because, for excellent reasons, he was not sure he could.  And now that those months have come and gone, he is not promising EVEN NOW that he will get it done in "months".

And he has a history of this sort of statement.  In mid October 2006, when he had maybe 540 pages  of DANCE done, he said he hoped to finish by the end of the year (2.5 months). In March of '08, when he had 596 pages of DANCE done, he publicly expressed hope of finishing ADWD in 3 months.  In April, (when things were about the same) he said he "had to" finish in 2 months or his publishers would hunt him down and kill him.  In February 2009, when he had 774 pages done, he said "I think I can finish the book by June" which is 4 months.  As we know it did not come out till mid 2011, when he had nearly 1800 manuscript pages written, 1510 of which he used, 80 of which he edited away, and roughly 200 of which he bumped to Winds.  In retrospect, we can say that he was less-than half done (in terms of page count) when he expressed all the foregoing aspirations.

Would you say any of these statements were dishonest?  I wouldn't.  He's mainly just trying to psych himself up to get work done.  Anyone fooled by such statements has only themselves to blame.  GRRM is not even pretending to say anything he can possibly be bound to.  Caveat emptor.

 

 

[mushroomshirt]

 Damn you're right he did  Still, there is the question what new material he might be adding if it was a very old chapter. (And to be honest, it is more fun thinking about Theon than analyzing his writing speed ...)

Hell yes!  Maybe it would speed up his writing if all of Winds was from Theon's POV only   I would certainly enjoy that.

[Arthmail]

It comes out when it comes out.  I would rather have a book that he put his heart and soul into his storytelling than a book written to appease a fickle fandom.

 

 

[Arthmail]

I'm not sure what happened there, but the above quote is what is currently the problem. He's being given enough leeway to hang himself. I would hardly call people waiting half a decade or more for a single book to be fickle, these are people that have been fans forever. Anyone who had a child around the 3rd book will likely see their child graduate before he finishes the sixth book, or the 3rd in regards to what they are waiting for. That's absurd.

He needs to be pushed. But he won't be. People will still be there to read it, but making excuses for him or feeling sorry for him doesn't make any sense either.

[The Human Abstract]

It will be a real shame if some of what your guys are writing is correct, because this series had (and still has) potential for absolute greatness.  

[A Ghost of Someone]

Well, for one thing, he needs to have it out in the public's hands by the end of 2016 which, maybe 6th months for editing and binding and distribution, he needs to be done roughly at the end of Season 6 on the show, the end of June. We do not know how many pages he has but from what has been hinted, that seems reasonably obtainable. Christmas of 2016 we may be able to get in our hands, TWOW.

[lokisnow]

Truly, the worst thing that ever happened to the series was the philosophy, "take all the time you need, George" as the books have decreased in quality once this option was exercised.

I've seen this coming for years, I reread the first book for fourth time when dance was announced and marveled at its focused narrative, then after the disappointment of reading dance after the perfect first season I realized I'd rather the story be completed by tv because the show would never make the directionless narrative choices of the last two novels, rather, after reading dance I realized the show (if it were so lucky to survive to four five or six seasons or beyond) was going to be forced into trying to create a narrative focus that resembled the first books out of the bad books. This Could Only be a good thing in my mind, and so as each season arrived I cheered almost every time they condensed and refocused the narrative (their Martin esque weird digression into Drone remains a mystifying foray).

Having drained the swamp of the last two books I'm really looking forward to the final seasons and a proper conclusion to the story since I don't think there would be one otherwise.

The blog post reads to me as though George is a long way away still, probably no more than750 ms pages completed. I think it's a good year or two or three away from completion.

Sure Martin is bitter. So Is George Lucas. For the same reasons. Someone else is doing a much better job with his story than he's capable of doing himself.

[mormont]

Anyone who had a child around the 3rd book will likely see their child graduate before he finishes the sixth book, or the 3rd in regards to what they are waiting for. That's absurd.

Is it?

I mean, we're not talking about 300 page detective novels here. What's normal for a fantasy series of this scope and length? I'd say at least 3 years between books, but there are so few points of comparison that's really an arbitrary number. What we've had is 5-6 years, which is something we all (including GRRM) wish had been significantly less, but if wishes were horses, and all that.

He needs to be pushed. But he won't be.

I never understand the assumption that not only does GRRM not push himself, or react to pushing by the fans, but also that not a single one of GRRM's editors, publishers, family, friends, colleagues, professional collaborators, business associates and partners has ever thought to push him. I put it down to wishful thinking, the notion that an intractable problem actually has an easy answer. 

I agree, if he had 1000 pages written he would have probably put the book out, it's not like he hasn't already put a random selection of chapters out and called it a novel, twice.

You may think this is a reasonable description of the last two books, but a portion of the delay in each case was caused specifically by GRRM's desire to get the manuscript to be a coherent novel. Even if he failed in your opinion, that matters because clearly he wouldn't do as you suggest this time either.

[Regular John Umber]

 

 

 

Sure Martin is bitter. So Is George Lucas. For the same reasons. Someone else is doing a much better job with his story than he's capable of doing himself.

 

 

 

 Really? Who? Because there's no way you're talking about the TV show.

[mormont]

The merits or otherwise of the TV show are not the topic at hand.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Is it?

I mean, we're not talking about 300 page detective novels here. What's normal for a fantasy series of this scope and length? I'd say at least 3 years between books, but there are so few points of comparison that's really an arbitrary number. What we've had is 5-6 years, which is something we all (including GRRM) wish had been significantly less, but if wishes were horses, and all that.

I never understand the assumption that not only does GRRM not push himself, or react to pushing by the fans, but also that not a single one of GRRM's editors, publishers, family, friends, colleagues, professional collaborators, business associates and partners has ever thought to push him. I put it down to wishful thinking, the notion that an intractable problem actually has an easy answer. 

 

You may think this is a reasonable description of the last two books, but a portion of the delay in each case was caused specifically by GRRM's desire to get the manuscript to be a coherent novel. Even if he failed in your opinion, that matters because clearly he wouldn't do as you suggest this time either.

Mormont

I know you have long been a defender of Martin on this issue. I am interested to understand if that defense is in sympathy (or at the very least empathy) for the man and the obvious plight he is going through (while acknowledging that there is a very big problem indeed), or whether it is in fundamental disagreement that there is a cause for readers' concern at all.

To put it differently, do you agree that there is a real risk that we may never see the conclusion of this series, or is it that you feel that readers are over stating the nature of that risk, and everything will work out fine in the end? If the former, do you then simply feel that readers should just accept that if the worst indeed comes to pass, given that they are owed nothing by the author?

 

 

[mormont]

FNR: I'm long on record as saying that:

- there's ample evidence that writing ASOIAF is GRRM's top priority and that he is acutely aware of how much and how many people are anticipating it.

- the problems GRRM is experiencing are a good deal more complicated and intractable than a need to 'buckle down' or 'cut out distractions' (which, as I say, are mostly either trivial or unavoidable).

- these problems are undoubtedly significant, but a 'cause for concern' - well, I'm not sure I see the point of being concerned about something you can't do anything about. In the final analysis there's nothing we, as fans, can do about the delays, so we have a choice: grumble and gnash our teeth (to no effect) or come to terms with it. I personally recommend the latter.

Will it all work out fine in the end? Will the series be completed, in two books, or three, or four, or never? When will the next book come out? Honestly, none of us know the answers to these questions, and almost all of our guesses lack the information needed to be anything other than wild stabs in the dark. We'll have to wait and see.

In short, I counsel patience. Not (only) as the best thing for GRRM, but as the best thing for all of us.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Mormont

I largely agree with your counsel, although I implement it with a different mindset. Yes, I have learned patience. I no longer visit his Not a blog daily for an update, as I used to do a couple of years ago.

But my increase in patience has come at a cost. Which is both a reduced interest in ASOIAF, and, as an inevitable companion to the track record of disappointment, a certain resentment towards the source of the disrespect shown to fans.

Will it influence his rate of progress in any way? Nope. But it is what it is.