Ninefingers

Hey everybody, there is no new update. Repeat, no update.

Of the two, I think that one is significantly better.

Maybe because fundamentally it's just a day in the life vignette. And so if you make it longer without adding events it just feels padded out and less focused? But that's just a guess.

Read The Narrow Road Between Desires. It was...fine? I'm probably going to go back and read The Lightning Tree, because I'm having trouble putting my finger on what was different, despite it being about 50% longer. Maybe it's been too long, or I just wasn't a careful reader, because nothing leapt out at me as being new, different, or cool.

It's been observed by people before that both his apologies and talk about his mental health seem to coincide with new opportunities to give him money. (Kickstarters, charity drives, merch, etc)

It really, REALLY feels like the best path forward is just to release it in whatever state it’s in and move on. He can keep working on it if he likes, and once book three comes out [waits for laughter to die down] literally zero people will care if this chapter released for charity changed, or stunk, or whatever.

Update on the sample chapter: TL;DR I tried to make it cool, it got complicated. I feel bad. I still want to do it. It's half edited and don't know whether to keep editing or give you the old version.

He talks in this blog about the changes: https://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2012/07/why-i-love-my-editor/

I've always really liked the dinner analogy. If you'll permit me to flesh it out: I prepare and serve my children dinner, then tell them to go outside and play for a bit, but that dessert has been prepared and will be served at 7. 7 comes and goes with some questions, then 8 rolls around and they start to misbehave. Around 9 they start throwing tantrums and using bad language when they realize I was lying about it having been prepared. I yell at them for their misbehavior and remind them that I signed no contract to provide dessert, and I'm the sole arbiter of whether it gets served. Now, are my children owed dessert? No. Is their behavior acceptable? No. Did I behave morally with regards to the expectation I created? I sure don't think so.

Meteors? This is a poor argument, which can be applied to absolutely anything, leading to the conclusion that moral obligations simply do not exist because someone could always be hit by a meteor. I can't speak to the end of Williams' book, but I think (hope?) you'd agree that there's a different level of expectation created between an open ended series and a declarative statement of: "I have already created thing and I will deliver thing at this time" As for the statement of "The author owes you only the book you purchased… no more… no less.", it uses language (purchase, owe) that suggests legal obligation. I completely agree with you here! There is no legal obligation.

Not even needed an edit, "good to go".

Certainly no legal obligation. But we'll have to agree to disagree on moral obligation. When you tell someone you'll provide something to them (be that item or opportunity), I think you've created an expectation. It comes down to considerations of right and wrong, and I don't believe it's right to go back on your word, especially when you're the one who created and volunteered the expectation.

I find this precisely in keeping with my username, thank you.

This is where I'm at. Taking to twitter, or email, or in person harassment of Rothfuss is assholeish behavior. (Although I would note that polite requests for updates I consider completely in bounds.) On the other side of the ledger, Rothfuss has repeatedly lied, broken promises, and gone on record that people who ask for updates on book 3 should "fuck off and die". So, yeah, no heroes here.

I'd happily put Robin Hobb in place of 4 different authors on that list.

I read the Tress and the Emerald Sea one. It was fine. Predictable, but fine. Felt like a very standard Sanderson book.

Bruce Campbell is too old these days.

Exactly what I was going to say, but better articulated than I would have managed.

Cut down your quote to the part about motivation for rewriting the lightning tree. From his announcement: Perhaps a little too much honesty from him there.

Same. Even if it is just an expansion of an already released short story. Also, happy for him that his extended hiatus from social media was productive time. I bet he feels great about it.

You hero. That's it. I guess my error was searching the current "not a blog" rather than the old livejournal page. Thanks again, I appreciate it.

Hi, I was hoping one of you kind folks could help me find a blog post by George that I'm failing to locate. It was from years back, and he was explaining why the book (probably Winds) wasn't going to make it before to publication before the next season of the show. He explained his process and said that he was given a deadline by his publishers to have the manuscript to them so (I think) the show wouldn't overtake the books. He further explained that he missed the deadline and was given a reprieve, but had now missed the new one as well. My enduring memory of the post though is that the reprieve he was given was three months and at the time he felt that was realistic. Of course, we know it hasn't worked out that way. I randomly remembered this the other day and went searching for it to no avail. Does anyone else remember this? Or did I hallucinate? Any help/thoughts are appreciated.

I think it's a combination of personal life problems reaching new and dizzying heights combined with embarrassment over the missing chapter/AWOL charity drive.

10-15 year publication gap, or 10-15 years in world? (I believe @baxus was talking about the latter)

I get the impression that Sanderson first decided he was going to write a ten book series and then decided to come up with the story to fill it. This can cause real problems if the story you come up with doesn't actually need ten books to tell.