The Scabbard Of the Morning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber

Arguably the greatest piece of literary work in the Chinese language is an unfinished novel written in the 1700's. Many have attempted to finish it, there is even an "official" finished version. But everyone agrees that all the attempts to finish it are far inferior to the original. The book is also heavy in foreshadowing, prophecy, so the fate of many of the characters can be (somewhat) deduced through careful parsing of the portion that was written, and there is a whole field in Chinese literature departments that specifically deals with this novel and attempts to guess how the author intended to conclude the story. There are some parallels here.

First of all, are you also giving yourself a warning for calling me "a massive display of entitlement"? Is that a personal attack? Looks like a personal attack to me. Secondly. No one is entitled to my feelings. So when I don't feel sorry for some one, it doesn't make me entitled. Arguing that they are entitled to my feelings by implying I'm doing some wrong in withholdiong it, makes the person, you in this case, entitled.

Are you even capable of basic logic? I wrote. "But it's not that he can't finish, it's that he's not willing to do what it takes to finish that frustrates fans. If he stopped attending conventions, stopped posting on his blog about the NFL draft, stopped publishing other books, stopped taking book tours, if he stopped all that, and still can't finish, then I would legitimately feel sorry for him. Because he's really trying, and it's still not working." To which you responded "That's a massively display of entitlement. At this point you're telling someone they can't take a leak without your permission and your approval of their usage of time." Where did I say he required my permission for anything? All I said was that his actions were unworthy of me feeling sorry for him. To which you accused me of "massively display of entitlement". Implying that I'm obligated to not withholding my sympathy. So in the same post you accuse me of entitlement, you imply that GRRM is entitled to my sympathy. I'm under no illusion that GRRM cares about my approval. But that doesn't mean I'm oligated to give it to him.

No, it's exactly the opposite, it's *YOUR* display of entitlement. That somehow he's entitled to me feeling sorry for him or entitled to my approval. He isn't. He's not my bitch, but I'm not his either, nor yours. Get off your soapbox.

He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do. It's his life. But you're asking me to feel sorry for him, and I'm not going to do that until I see that he's given it his all. And I don't see that, not even close.

But it's not that he can't finish, it's that he's not willing to do what it takes to finish that frustrates fans. If he stopped attending conventions, stopped posting on his blog about the NFL draft, stopped publishing other books, stopped taking book tours, if he stopped all that, and still can't finish, then I would legitimately feel sorry for him. Because he's really trying, and it's still not working. As it is, it's hard for me to feel sorry for him when I see that he is always distracted with other things. Making it impossible to know whether his slow progress ls lack of muse or lack of discipline. (I suspect both)

I've promised myself that if Arya dies I will build a bonfire of all my ASOIAF stuff outside GRRM's theater in Sante Fe.

Wheel of Time drastically dropped in quality post LOC (It actually started before LOC but it fell off a cliff afterwards), a lot of people like me dropped the series after Path of Daggers or Winter's Heart.

I'm sorry, but the "he's always done this" sounds good on surface appeal but it crashes the moment you think deeper about it. I'm in my 40s, and I find myself unable to do what I've always done in my 20's and 30's, because I got older. I can't eat the way I used to. I can't play sports the way I used to. In fact I've had to cut down the frequency of playing sports because my body requires more time to recover, so I've had to cut down on sports that I don't like as much so I can keep doing the ones I love. I imagine I'll have to make more changes when I get to my 60s No one can keep the same pace of production in their 60s as they did in their 40s, it's foolish to try and one has to prioritize. It's clear to me that GRRM has done a poor job of prioritizing and adjusting. Him trying to do what he's always done is precisely part of the problem.

He is writing and editing other stuff, and to take a page out of your book, none of us really knows how much time it's taken him to write them, so none of us can conclusively say that it hasn't impacted his time spent writing TWOW. And just found this post from you in another thread. "I think we are mostly on the same page there. The central point being that George wrote 300,000 words for the world book and most of that material is now Fire & Blood, which is c. 275,000 words (since GRRM's writing formatting is uniform for all his books and AGoT was 1,088 manuscript pages = 298,000 words), so 25,000-odd words (presumably those verbatim passages from WoIaF and a few other sections unrelated to the Targs) is not included." So by your admission he's written text that doubles the text in the first book. And I don't buy the "they are all before 2012". We don't know how much he's worked on the F&B book in the last few years, for all we know he might have spent significant amount of time last year and this year writing and rewriting stuff for that book.

It's also an undeniable fact that while TWOW has languished, he's published serveral books and edited others for publication. So it's entirely reasonable to question his allocation of time, regardless of why TWOW is taking so long.

I think I'm going to take a page from Hoster Tully and start calling him The Late George RR Martin.

Well, this makes sense since if there was anything the writing in the TLJ reminded me of, it was the last few seasons of GOT.

Yeah, there were always problems with each season, but 1-4 there was enough good stuff to hold the thing together. Season 5 was when it started to crumble because it could not be held together anymore. I said emotional farewell to the show after season 5.