GRRM confirms: TWOW not done yet

[Hagen of Tronje]

Re: Writing Process

I do rewrite quite a bit... well, after 1982, anyway... but I must admit, I did a lot more on FEAST and DANCE than anything before them. And not just polishes, but major restructings, like getting rid of the five-year gap, and my endless attempts to make that one Tyrion chapter work... (it never did). Those two books were bears.

So far, I have not done anywhere near as much rewriting on WINDS... but of course, it is not done yet.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/362384.html?thread=18866832#t18866832

So this should finally put an end to all the ongoing rumours that a release date is imminent.

It's also significant because it's the first time we hear something on his NAB about the progress of TWOW for many months. And, although many people who believed in an imminent release date announcement will probably be disappointed, I think these are actually good news:

1. He is apparently not struggling with the story as much as he was while writing AFFC/ADWD. No Meereneese knot problem or something like that so far.

2. It looks like we won't get any (or just very few) new sample chapters, as indicated by this post (answering the question if he worries to reveal too much before the book is published) :

http://grrm.livejournal.com/362384.html?thread=18867088#t18867088

Yes. I worry about that all the time.

And I think I may be at the limit with WINDS.

Though I do intend to offer you all a little taste from THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE soon.

If TWOW would be years away, we'd probably get additional chapters to help us with the wait.

So, all in all (less rewrites, breaking of the radio silence regarding Winds, two new sample chapters in one month, now "at the limit" with the release of sample chapters), he seems to make good progress.

[sifth]

We had nearly a dozen sample chapters or summaries of said chapters for ADWD and the book still took 6 years to come out. Just saying, lol

[joluoto2]

This is not news, we knew it wasn't done yet. His publishers even confirmed the release will be at earliest next year (and probably later).

[Hagen of Tronje]

I'm aware of that, but many people still believed he would announce it soon due to several reasons (his talk of "more surprises" on his NAB etc.) And, as I wrote, it's the first time we hear something directly from GRRM about the progress of TWOW after many months of silence.

Edit: Oops, sorry for the typos in the thread title.

[Ser Tahu]

I think the most significant thing we can take out of this, as you said, is that he isn't struggling with the story as much as he was while writing Feast/Dance. It's been obvious for a while that a 2014 release is, for all intents and purposes, impossible but I like to think that this news makes an early 2015 release a real possibility.

[Ser Wun Wun]

Looking at his blog post where he talked about writing Dance, you can see that his progress was practically glacial. He increased the total completed page count by a pathetic 100 or so pages a year. One year he actually decreased his completed page count. I'm inclined to believe that this lack of progress was due to his constant rewrites rather than a lack of output in general. He's just a very finicky writer, he scraps a lot of his work resulting in wasted time.

So I'm glad to hear he's not rewriting as much for Winds. Means we might actually get it sometime in 2015.

[sifth]

I think the most significant thing we can take out of this, as you said, is that he isn't struggling with the story as much as he was while writing Feast/Dance. It's been obvious for a while that a 2014 release is, for all intents and purposes, impossible but I like to think that this news makes an early 2015 release a real possibility.

Depends on how badly all of those lovely side projects delayed him from writing THE BOOK THAT MATTERS.

[HannibalStark]

his "tastes" from the world of Ice and Fire could literally be:

http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Ice-Fire-Westeros/dp/0553805444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396011588&sr=8-1&keywords=world+of+ice+and+fire

quite a lot of news and notices on this have been brought up.

I agree that there is barely a slim hope that it will come out in 2015...Im just hoping he finishes them period at this point.

[mb2518]

What he said about the editing and chronological order explains why the chapter says "the queen will offer a lordship." I still think 2016 seems reasonable.

[Newstar]

We had nearly a dozen sample chapters or summaries of said chapters for ADWD and the book still took 6 years to come out. Just saying, lol

Yes. I don't think we can gauge much by that. Also, the most recent chapter GRRM provided was one that should have gone in ADWD and was first written 10 years ago.

[Sandra Melis]

and my endless attempts to make that one Tyrion chapter work... (it never did).

Which one is GRRM referring to? :dunno: :dunno: :dunno:

[MegaAIP]

I still think something big is up, I will be shocked with a late 2014 but still think it's possible. He has been so quiet and really cryptic about progress and then he puts out 2 chapters in less then 2 weeks.

[A Man Has Said]

Depends on how badly all of those lovely side projects delayed him from writing THE BOOK THAT MATTERS.

A global moratorium on ComicCon-type events would help immensely. Every time one of those happens, it takes about a week of his time, including packing, travel and unpacking. And in spite of his swearing up and down that the small theater in Santa Fe? wouldn't take up much of his time, I think the prominence of events there on his blog put the lie to the promise.

That said, when he does get it done, it's usually worth the wait. I <3 the new Arya sample chapter!

[Angalin]

If this thread turns into another dissection of GRRM's writing habits, hobbies, tilt of hat and which way he holds the keyboard, I will close it because I've read enough of those already and not one of you has offered me winning lottery numbers to offset the pain. If you want to discuss sample chapters, there are other threads for that.

[Hagen of Tronje]

I think the most significant thing we can take out of this, as you said, is that he isn't struggling with the story as much as he was while writing Feast/Dance. It's been obvious for a while that a 2014 release is, for all intents and purposes, impossible but I like to think that this news makes an early 2015 release a real possibility.

There's still hope. In fact it's the first time we get any good news regarding his progress this year after Jane Johnson's twitter comments etc. (at least I'd like to think that they are indeed good news.)

@Angalin: The thread is not about the released sample chapters nor meant as a place to throw dirt at GRRM, but I thought the quotes might be of interest, since we haven't heard anything from him regarding TWOW for a long time. Plus, he announced a new "World of Ice and fire" sample chapter, and it seems like we might not get another TWOW sample chapter prior to the release.

[Red Wedding Cake]

I think he released the new chapters so close to each other because hes so damn proud of that last one. I dont think there will be as many sample chapters as Feast and Dance bc Winds is expected to be much faster.

I only expect a summer release bc season finales of the show must do wonders for sales.

[Damp Hair - The Prophet]

TWOW will come out first quarter of 2015 at the LATEST. They need it by then for the HBO show, which will cover most of AFFC & ADWD in season 5. Mark it.

[Red Wedding Cake]

If most of what GRRM does is rewriting and he's open about how the series goes with the show theres no reason to release the books publically while the show writers write the show.

[Angalin]

There's still hope. In fact it's the first time we get any good news regarding his progress this year after Jane Johnson's twitter comments etc. (at least I'd like to think that they are indeed good news.)

@Angalin: The thread is not about the released sample chapters nor meant as a place to throw dirt at GRRM, but I thought the quotes might be of interest, since we haven't heard anything from him regarding TWOW for a long time. Plus, he announced a new "World of Ice and fire" sample chapter, and it seems like we might not get another TWOW sample chapter prior to the release.

While I understand your intention, there've been a lot of other threads that started out the same way only to end in perdition locking.

[Werthead]

Looking at his blog post where he talked about writing Dance, you can see that his progress was practically glacial. He increased the total completed page count by a pathetic 100 or so pages a year. One year he actually decreased his completed page count. I'm inclined to believe that this lack of progress was due to his constant rewrites rather than a lack of output in general. He's just a very finicky writer, he scraps a lot of his work resulting in wasted time.

This is correct. The page counts GRRM gives are for completed, edited and 'locked' material, which can only be subsequently changed in late edits (when the book is done). ADWD was highly unusual in that the structural changes GRRM made meant that the 'locked' thing was less reliable than it had been as a metre of progress on AFFC and earlier novels, as he had to keep 'unlocking' the chapters to move them around to address the Meereenese Knot, his massive rewrite of the entirety of Jon Snow's storyline, omitting a whole Tyrion subplot etc.

He was still writing a lot of 'unlocked' (i.e. first draft material, fragments, rough sketches) material, he just wasn't finalising them in that time. When you get to the end of the writing process and the page count is shooting up by 100 pages a month of whatever, that's because that material had mostly been written years earlier and GRRM was effectively signing off on it, not because he was suddenly churning out 100 pages of polished, finished material from scratch in a month.

If GRRM is saying that TWoW has been far less problematic so far, that is highly encouraging. Unfortunately, it appears that ADWD situation has made him much more wary about releasing progress information by way of finished manuscript pages, as he seems to distrust that they are really done and doesn't want to raise false hopes again.