How is it not going to be two books?!

[Dorian Martell's son]

4 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

He dedicates a lot of time to it. Not all of his time, but a lot. The problem is that there are some days as a writer where no matter how hard you try nothing good comes. You can write all day and end up with thousands of words that get cut from the story. Those days keep you in the habit of writing but they don't actually add much to the book. 

Though I have to say it's fun when you look back at absolute dreck from a bad writing day and find one gleaming gem of a sentence or phrase. In those cases it is not entirely time lost.

He also stated he broke his stride by putting his pen down after dance and doing book tours for a year. He had a lot of trouble getting started again. 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

1 hour ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

He also stated he broke his stride by putting his pen down after dance and doing book tours for a year. He had a lot of trouble getting started again. 

Also true. But he has been back at it for a while now. 

[Robert Baratheon's hammer]

I think TWOW may cover more ground than people think. The pov characters are less spread out than they were in a dance as we have multiple of them in the same area meaning that some will die. The books also meant to be the longest yet.

I expect the chapter by character to go something like this.

The north - Jon/Snow-8 Mel-3 Theon-4 Asha-1 Davos-5 Bran-5

Kingslanding stuff - Cersei-4 Adrianne-4 Connington-2 Hootah-2 

Riverlands/Vale - Sansa-5 Brienne-4 Jamie-2

Oldtown stuff - Aeron-2 Sam-6

Arya - 5

Essos - Danny-8 Tyrion-7 Baristan-2 Vic-3 

[Nevets]

13 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

Personally I'm worried about a Order of the Phoenix/Half Blood Prince/Deathly Hollows type of deal. Waaaay too much buildup and then a rushed ending due to exhaustion and time constrains.

Gotta agree here, what we have seen so far looks exactly like more of DWDFFC a lot of walking around, a lot of long conversations about what might happen, heraldry, tapestries etc. etc. etc. personally once it is published I'm not buying the book until I have verified whether it has more plot than the last two. I mean he has already talked of a potential eight book. And those statements about how WoW will "explore the world beyond the wall". "Exploring" brings the Shy Maid chapters to mind, not something fast paced.

I just don't have the confidence anymore that the pace will pick up anytime soon.

Actually, with the exception of the two Arianne chapters, the pace isn't too bad.  The Arya, Sansa, and Theon chapters move pretty well.  He's obviously unwilling to release any chapters with major spoilers in them, which probably makes things seem slower than I actually expect them to ultimately be.