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The Ultimate Winds of Winter Resource


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I think he is waiting for the Show to finish, to gauge the effect, reaction and general impact of certain key plot events, and to leave himself the luxury of modifying his text accordingly.

So no, he is not deliberately "sitting" on a finished manuscript. But he is not exactly rushing to get the book out before Season 8 finishes either. In fact, it might even be a case of once the series has ended gazillions of Show fans will now be thirsting for more "Game of Thrones", and this would be a great marketing boon for the release of the next book.

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7 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I think he is waiting for the Show to finish, to gauge the effect, reaction and general impact of certain key plot events, and to leave himself the luxury of modifying his text accordingly.

So no, he is not deliberately "sitting" on a finished manuscript. But he is not exactly rushing to get the book out before Season 8 finishes either. In fact, it might even be a case of once the series has ended gazillions of Show fans will now be thirsting for more "Game of Thrones", and this would be a great marketing boon for the release of the next book.

That ship has sailed and George really has very little interest or concern about the timelines for the release of a book versus the show, since he can't possibly get the book out before the show and Benioff and Weiss have taken the story in a somewhat different direction for the series. George also has more than enough money to last him three more lifetimes, so that's not really a motivating factor either.

The second he finishes TWoW, he'll start the process of getting it on the shelves and won't start playing around with fans. He knows how late the book is, how much his publishers want it and how much it'll mean to fans to get it. Screwing around with the process is completely unnecessary.

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5 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I think he is waiting for the Show to finish, to gauge the effect, reaction and general impact of certain key plot events, and to leave himself the luxury of modifying his text accordingly.

So no, he is not deliberately "sitting" on a finished manuscript. But he is not exactly rushing to get the book out before Season 8 finishes either. In fact, it might even be a case of once the series has ended gazillions of Show fans will now be thirsting for more "Game of Thrones", and this would be a great marketing boon for the release of the next book.

I don't think this makes much sense. If there are key plot points that will be similar in the books and the show they'll be... well, key plot points, and I don't see Martin going back and changing anything because of that. Even if he wanted to, which I very much doubt, it would ruin the story because there's just too much foreshadowing, hints, symbolism, etc that he's put in every book. 

Now, as desperate as I am for the book, I would very much like for Winds to not come out until s 8 is at least being filmed. 

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11 hours ago, Werthead said:

Fire and Blood coming out earlier...this should have been predictable. We know he wrote 80,000 words on the Dance of Dragons alone, and tens of thousands more words on the Conquest, on Maegor and Aenys, on the Old King. Fire and Blood being 400,000-odd words long was never really going to be doable, so it makes sense for them to publish what he's effectively already written and completed years ago as Volume I and then hold fire on Volume II until after the main series is done. And I think the main series has to be done first, because this now means that he can got into a lot more detail in Volume II on Robert's Rebellion and will probably want to avoid spoilers for the main series. 

Eh... If the man says that there will be no ancillary work until the main ship is done, and you're desperate for that ship, what should have been predictable is a silly thought. (Elio and Linda hoped for significant news at the upcoming worldcon...) And what are we to do? I am all for more Daemon but this came out of nowhere for me. All I can think about is that the extra material (2 volumes worth!!) is to tide me over for a meaningful amount of time, which in turn makes me think TWoW manuscript is not as strong as "months away" would imply (was it ever?) - what's that, anyways? At least 6 months? FWIW, I don't think GRRM is laboring under any kind of writer's block, knot etc. I think he's polishing the shape of the book that feels dependent on ADwD, generally, he's addressing the structural issues. I think it's possible for him to feel great about pressure to give his best, and perfectionism isn't the best of burdens. 

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1 hour ago, The Bear Who Knocks said:

Its gonna be fire and blood watch so no TWoW until at least 2019.

Yep.  Fire and Blood is what he's working on now, and Fire and Blood will come out before Winds, based on the last blog post, that's how I read it.  Alrighty then.  His publishers must be apoplectic. 

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I'm not buying into any silly conspiracy theories and I certainly don't think he's holding on to it anymore than necessary. He's simply not close to finishing.

What's clear is that it is not his main priority anymore. If you want to be generous you could claim that at one point the writing of Winds *may* have been his sole priority, but in the last year or two it's clearly become one of many projects he is paying attention to.

The surprising state of Fire and Blood is the biggest indicator of that. His blog posts about his involvement with the Game of Thrones 5 prequel shows is another. Then there's his involvement with the Wild Cards tv projects. He might like to take an interest in Syfy's Nightflyer series as well. Certainly more work has been done on Fire and Blood, and that is the good news for me. If that comes out in late 2018 we will have something at least, and to me that seems like a very interesting book. He's clearly not going down the path of making Winds his sole priority, and that probably simply does not work for him anyway, he needs diversion from it.

As for Winds, it seems to be in a state of complete disarray in terms of completion and getting to the finish line. He says he's months away and has no idea how many months. He even says a book that comes out late 2018/early 2019 might be earlier than Winds. He said he was months away from finishing two years ago, so clearly this has gotten completely out of hand. I think the story ( and the number of pages) just keeps getting bigger and bigger because he has so much left to tell in this book, and because his writing is so slow.

It's a shocker though, that must be said. It's not even close.

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1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

I'm not buying into any silly conspiracy theories and I certainly don't think he's holding on to it anymore than necessary. He's simply not close to finishing.

What's clear is that it is not his main priority anymore. If you want to be generous you could claim that at one point the writing of Winds *may* have been his sole priority, but in the last year or two it's clearly become one of many projects he is paying attention to.

The surprising state of Fire and Blood is the biggest indicator of that. His blog posts about his involvement with the Game of Thrones 5 prequel shows is another. Then there's his involvement with the Wild Cards tv projects. He might like to take an interest in Syfy's Nightflyer series as well. Certainly more work has been done on Fire and Blood, and that is the good news for me. If that comes out in late 2018 we will have something at least, and to me that seems like a very interesting book. He's clearly not going down the path of making Winds his sole priority, and that probably simply does not work for him anyway, he needs diversion from it.

As for Winds, it seems to be in a state of complete disarray in terms of completion and getting to the finish line. He says he's months away and has no idea how many months. He even says a book that comes out late 2018/early 2019 might be earlier than Winds. He said he was months away from finishing two years ago, so clearly this has gotten completely out of hand. I think the story ( and the number of pages) just keeps getting bigger and bigger because he has so much left to tell in this book, and because his writing is so slow.

It's a shocker though, that must be said. It's not even close.

I agree with all of this, but I can't say I"m shocked to learn from the recent update that Winds is looking like best case end of 2018, and that is a long shot, it looks like Fire and Blood will come before Winds.  The problem is that the longer it takes, the more there is the pressure that it be great/perfect to justify the wait, and the more pressure there is the more there is need, apparently, to find diversions....Fire/Blood, HBO shows, Wildcards....as a pressure release, and the more diversions the longer it takes.  The proverbial vicious cycle.

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13 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I'm not buying into any silly conspiracy theories and I certainly don't think he's holding on to it anymore than necessary. He's simply not close to finishing.

What's clear is that it is not his main priority anymore. If you want to be generous you could claim that at one point the writing of Winds *may* have been his sole priority, but in the last year or two it's clearly become one of many projects he is paying attention to.

The surprising state of Fire and Blood is the biggest indicator of that. His blog posts about his involvement with the Game of Thrones 5 prequel shows is another. Then there's his involvement with the Wild Cards tv projects. He might like to take an interest in Syfy's Nightflyer series as well. Certainly more work has been done on Fire and Blood, and that is the good news for me. If that comes out in late 2018 we will have something at least, and to me that seems like a very interesting book. He's clearly not going down the path of making Winds his sole priority, and that probably simply does not work for him anyway, he needs diversion from it.

As for Winds, it seems to be in a state of complete disarray in terms of completion and getting to the finish line. He says he's months away and has no idea how many months. He even says a book that comes out late 2018/early 2019 might be earlier than Winds. He said he was months away from finishing two years ago, so clearly this has gotten completely out of hand. I think the story ( and the number of pages) just keeps getting bigger and bigger because he has so much left to tell in this book, and because his writing is so slow.

It's a shocker though, that must be said. It's not even close.

 

12 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree with all of this, but I can't say I"m shocked to learn from the recent update that Winds is looking like best case end of 2018, and that is a long shot, it looks like Fire and Blood will come before Winds.  The problem is that the longer it takes, the more there is the pressure that it be great/perfect to justify the wait, and the more pressure there is the more there is need, apparently, to find diversions....Fire/Blood, HBO shows, Wildcards....as a pressure release, and the more diversions the longer it takes.  The proverbial vicious cycle.

At this juncture, after the latest WoW-related fiasco, it would just be silly to even argue about GRRM's priorities or the status of WoW.

That said, I can't help myself from commenting that calling these assertions 'unqualified' would be kind. You got all that from two-and-a-half posts on NotABlog? Yikes.

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3 hours ago, Wayward Sand Star said:

 

At this juncture, after the latest WoW-related fiasco, it would just be silly to even argue about GRRM's priorities or the status of WoW.

That said, I can't help myself from commenting that calling these assertions 'unqualified' would be kind. You got all that from two-and-a-half posts on NotABlog? Yikes.

No from the last 7 years of of the author's actions and words, plus the back story on Dance and Feast, so that is more than a decade of the author's actions and words to draw conclusions from.

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On ‎23‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 9:27 PM, Cas Stark said:

I agree with all of this, but I can't say I"m shocked to learn from the recent update that Winds is looking like best case end of 2018, and that is a long shot, it looks like Fire and Blood will come before Winds.  The problem is that the longer it takes, the more there is the pressure that it be great/perfect to justify the wait, and the more pressure there is the more there is need, apparently, to find diversions....Fire/Blood, HBO shows, Wildcards....as a pressure release, and the more diversions the longer it takes.  The proverbial vicious cycle.

I think you are wrong. At best we either have twow in the first semester of 2018 or close to 2020. It doesn t make sense to publish 2 books on very close dates and the end of 2018/beguining of 2019 is reserved for fire and blood.

What I think is bad is that if were probable that he would finish twow before fire and blood he wouldn t make all this drama and give negative publicity for the book and himself... So I don t think we will have twow before 2020, close to 3 years...

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On 24/07/2017 at 3:51 PM, Cas Stark said:

No from the last 7 years of of the author's actions and words, plus the back story on Dance and Feast, so that is more than a decade of the author's actions and words to draw conclusions from.

I'm afraid you've taken to a very liberal reading of those. Whatever. There should be at least one Westeros publication in 2018, which is something.

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It was literally DAYS ago that people were convinced the author was finished with Winds and an announcement was coming within the month.  

Instead, he announced he is still working on Winds, has good days and bad days, and that it is possible that Winds will be released some time next year.  Or not.  

He has now been 'months away' from finishing the book for more than 2 years, and instead of not taking on any new projects until Winds is complete he has taken on a multitude of new projects including writing another book.  Only in a world where up is down and black is white can this be judged anything but near catastrophic news in terms of Winds of Winter.

 

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to be honest, it's quite depressing.

I'm far from being a good writer myself - could never keep my deadlines.

but: in May 2015 he thought, he could finish by Halloween. in August 2015, he thought, he could finish by the end of the year - in 4 months.

he claims that he put much effort into the work on TWOW since - and I certainly believe him.

HOW can he still be months away from finishing the book? how can he not be sure that the is done in 2018 - that's one and a half years. from 4-5 months 2 years ago. how can he be so bad at measureing his progress?

I simply cannot unterstand it :(

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9 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Chance that he finishes Winds within the next 6 months:  0.5%.  If he were that close, he would be blogging about Winds, not Fire and Blood, not Wildcards, not HBO, not everything else mentioned before he remembers to say he's still working on Winds.  His publishers can't be so stupid as to prefer an anthology that no one but hard core fans will buy v. Winds of Winter.  So, if they are settling for an anthology just to get something out, it's because Winds isn't finished, let alone in any shape for publication.  This is my analysis of the recent news and I'm sticking to it.  

I agree with you. However after the fiascos with dance I also understand if he doesn t anounce a date for twow or talks about how close he is to finish before he is completly certain...

To me either we are having a very conservative grrm or twow will only be released in 2020 or later. It doesn t make sense to give bad fame to his fire and blood and himself if twow were almost finished. And I think if it comes out in 2020 or later it will lose some fans. I don t plan to buy it if he takes that long to release it... I don t plan to be folowwing such a short series of books my entire life...

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On Invalid Date at 3:47 PM, Cas Stark said:

Fire and Blood is what he's working on now, and Fire and Blood will come out before Winds, based on the last blog post, that's how I read it.

Didn't GRRM swear a bloody oath end of last year - by the old gods and the new ones - that he would put aside all other activities to finish WOW?

Why is he now in parallel working on "Fire and Blood", as he asays himself a huge Task, big book, lots of material....

Appears to me that GRRM is an Oathbreaker. I am tempted to send Brienne with her sword for justice to him.

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He had written heaps of pages for World of Ice and Fire, which they decided to repurpose for Fire and Blood. Which means volume one of F&B (mostly?) consists of old material.

I find the announcement on volume two more alarming, since that essentially needs to be written from scratch. Remains to be seen when he starts out on that.

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11 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

Didn't GRRM swear a bloody oath end of last year - by the old gods and the new ones - that he would put aside all other activities to finish WOW?

Why is he now in parallel working on "Fire and Blood", as he asays himself a huge Task, big book, lots of material....

Appears to me that GRRM is an Oathbreaker. I am tempted to send Brienne with her sword for justice to him.

His words are wind.

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9 hours ago, Roughspun said:

He had written heaps of pages for World of Ice and Fire, which they decided to repurpose for Fire and Blood. Which means volume one of F&B (mostly?) consists of old material.

I find the announcement on volume two more alarming, since that essentially needs to be written from scratch. Remains to be seen when he starts out on that.

The writing period was mostly 2011-2013 afaik...years that should have been dedicated primarily to WInds imo, but yes, it is "old" work in a sense.  He did not have the reigns of Jaehaerys and Aegon III fully written at that time though, so he will have needed to write those sections recently in order to release F&B volume 1 next year.  Which means he went back on that whole 'not writing anything new til Winds is done' stance.  For this, at least.

I think he is naively assuming that since, in the past, his writing has sped up as he reached the end of his stories, the same will happen with Dream.  He's hoping Dream will be easier to write...a few years instead of close to a decade.

Everyone (including him) should know better than that by now.  Endings are HARD, and he's clearly turned into an OCD perfectionist.  He'll obsess over every word that goes into these books, which will mean another decade+ of writing time.  No doubt in my mind.

18 hours ago, Túrin the Turambar said:

to be honest, it's quite depressing.

I'm far from being a good writer myself - could never keep my deadlines.

but: in May 2015 he thought, he could finish by Halloween. in August 2015, he thought, he could finish by the end of the year - in 4 months.

he claims that he put much effort into the work on TWOW since - and I certainly believe him.

HOW can he still be months away from finishing the book? how can he not be sure that the is done in 2018 - that's one and a half years. from 4-5 months 2 years ago. how can he be so bad at measureing his progress?

I simply cannot unterstand it :(

Massive rewrites...he must despise what he's written so far.  Only explanation I can think of, unless he is literally just procrastinating and not even trying for the last 2 years (which I doubt is the case).

The pressure to deliver a masterpiece here must be crushing.  It only gets worse as the years drag on.     

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2 hours ago, Ser Wun Wun said:

He's hoping Dream will be easier to write...a few years instead of close to a decade.

Plausible.   It's true that these last two books involve plot and character outcomes he's been thinking about for a quarter century now, so you'd think it would come easily to him.

But it's also true that that statement applies to Winds of Winter.  And, by his own testimony, the writing has most certainly not come easily to him.  

You say ADOS will take close to a decade.  I agree.   So when will it come out? 

Well, if we believe this latest prediction for the pub date of TWOW (which is hard to do -- GRRM has routinely changed that prediction for years now, while simultaneously saying he's finished making predictions), he needs ~ 1.5 more years for TWOW.

So it seems clear 2028 is a decent rough guess for ADOS.  But will ADOS even finish the series?  I doubt it.  

This is just a function of max book length.  To kill ASOIAF in two books, GRRM has about 150 chapters to write out every mystery solution, every plot development, every character arc, tie off every loose string, fulfill every prophecy, and on and on.  

He can't just write more chapters; physical limits to book length make that impossible, as he learned with the single book that became AFFC and ADWD.

So each one of those 150 chapters is precious narrative time he absolutely can't blow on minor stuff.  Yet in TWOW we find his characters taking pitstop chapters in the middle of the woods... visiting minor castles we've barely even heard of... and other such locations that don't really advance the plot.  We find him dedicating at least four chapters to a relatively insignificant event like the Battle of Meereen, when as he himself has said, ASOIAF is the story of Westeros.

I just don't see him concluding ASOIAF in two books as a result.  I don't think he can compress it down to 150 chapters.

So if 2028 gets us to the seventh book, and the seventh book doesn't finish the series, what does that tell us about ASOIAF getting finished?  It doesn't look too promising.  And if there's one area where GRRM has never wavered, it's that he and only he will ever be allowed to write it out.

Well.  Is there some reason that we, as fans, should continue to think or care about a series that apparently isn't ever going to be finished?  

I guess there's a certain academic value in debating abstract matters that won't be resolved.  Some do take pleasure in that.  Scholars love to argue over which pharoah it was that was referenced in the story of Moses, or exactly when human beings first settled Australia.  Whatever.

But for others, I suspect whatever patience they had left for the tardiest project in F/SF history will soon be exhausted.

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