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The Ultimate Winds of Winter Resource


BryndenBFish

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2 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

GRRM did say that is was possible for F&B and TWoW to come out this year. A small chance for sure, but enough to keep my hopes alive at least. :(

Well, I guess we'll have to wait for the fist of January.

But at least, he explicitly said he's returning to writing it.

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1 hour ago, Lemorecake said:

“Archmaester Gyldayn is hanging up his quill for a while. As for me, I’m returning once again to THE WINDS OF WINTER.“

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Indeed.  [insert words are wind pun here].  GRRM says a lot of things that do not come to pass.

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5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Did anyone think Winds was really coming out this year?  Anyone? 

As a matter of fact, yes. He thought it would be out last year, and even late last year said one or two books would be released next year (ie 2018). And especially now Fire and Blood is finished... there's a lot of this year left.

Really puzzled.

PS he also seemed to be in a good mood recently, implying that he was making good progress with it.

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14 hours ago, CaptainTheo said:

As a matter of fact, yes. He thought it would be out last year, and even late last year said one or two books would be released next year (ie 2018). And especially now Fire and Blood is finished... there's a lot of this year left.

Really puzzled.

I'm not puzzled.  I didn't expect Winds would be out this year and I don't expect it will be out next year either.  His post didn't include any encouraging language about Winds, only that Winds isn't coming in 2018 and now he's done with Fire and Blood, he's getting back to Winds.  LOL.  Of course this is the same person who said he wasn't going to take on any new projects until Winds was completed, but I guess he gave that idea up years ago.  

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13 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I'm not puzzled.  I didn't expect Winds would be out this year and I don't expect it will be out next year either.  His post didn't include any encouraging language about Winds, only that Winds isn't coming in 2011 and now he's done with Fire and Blood, he's getting back to Winds.  LOL.  Of course this is the same person who said he wasn't going to take on any new projects until Winds was completed, but I guess he gave that idea up years ago.  

99% of the material in this book was written and completed in 3-4 months back in 2012. The "GRRMarillion" has been mentioned as an ongoing (if benched) project since then, so it isn't a new project. The work done to take the book from the pile of notes he had in 2012 to a publishable form has taken a fairly negligible amount of time.

Whether it was a good idea for GRRM to put TWoW on hold for 3-4 months back in 2012 to write this material (bearing in mind the world book had originally been planned for around 2008, so itself was running very late) is another question, but that horse has bolted.

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I said around and about the beginning of the previous Season of the Show that he would be holding back publishing Winds until the Show was done. That way the anticipation for the book would build all the more, as Show fans would be desperate for any new material about the main series. Thus expanding sales well beyond traditional book readers.

That at least gives a plausible, if cynical, reason for the now monumental delay. The idea that the book is simply taking this long to write is too depressing to really contemplate, even if that is probably the real truth of the matter. Then we might as well forget about ever seeing the end of this series - which we all know cannot be wrapped up in just 2 more books. I'm afraid an eighth book is beyond the realm of reasonable expectation at the current rate. So that means the series will remain open ended. A tragedy for the ages.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

99% of the material in this book was written and completed in 3-4 months back in 2012. The "GRRMarillion" has been mentioned as an ongoing (if benched) project since then, so it isn't a new project. The work done to take the book from the pile of notes he had in 2012 to a publishable form has taken a fairly negligible amount of time.

Whether it was a good idea for GRRM to put TWoW on hold for 3-4 months back in 2012 to write this material (bearing in mind the world book had originally been planned for around 2008, so itself was running very late) is another question, but that horse has bolted.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but didn't he say he ended up writing 300,000 words for the World Book? So, you are saying he wrote 300,000 words in a period of 3-4 months?  I mean, okay, but if true, it would seem to confirm that he is not writing at all on Winds of Winter and has not written on the book at all for months if not years...if he is able to write that level of output in a few months when motivated.  I guess if you want to count it as if neither the WB and FB are 'new' projects because their genesis was from 2008, that's up to you, I suppose that is how the author got around thinking his actions in writing two books since Dance came out and one book since he publicly said he was clearing the decks isn't a contradiction.

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I said around and about the beginning of the previous Season of the Show that he would be holding back publishing Winds until the Show was done. That way the anticipation for the book would build all the more, as Show fans would be desperate for any new material about the main series. Thus expanding sales well beyond traditional book readers.

 

Nope. The TV show's scheduling is utterly immaterial to the scheduling of the book.

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I don't mean to be argumentative, but didn't he say he ended up writing 300,000 words for the World Book? So, you are saying he wrote 300,000 words in a period of 3-4 months?  I mean, okay, but if true, it would seem to confirm that he is not writing at all on Winds of Winter and has not written on the book at all for months if not years...if he is able to write that level of output in a few months when motivated.

Yes, he wrote 300,000 words for the World Book in 3-4 months (although I suspect bits of it were written earlier than that, during the writing of ADWD, as well).

This is because writing non-fiction (even about fiction) is pretty easy. You don't need to worry about character motivation (except in a very abstract way), dialogue (apart from a couple of lines here and there), or in-the-moment description. It's all very straightforward, especially when you are just adding colour and more detail to a story that you already outline ten years earlier, in this case.

Writing fiction, on the other hand, is hard. Word choice matters far more, you have characterisation to work on, consistency of the material, themes, prose and dialogue. The different between writing "imaginary history" and actual novelistic prose is like night and day. It's the difference between writing newspaper articles and a novel. You can have someone write 300,000 words worth of newspaper articles in three months and then take two years on their first, 100,000 word novel.

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I suppose that is how the author got around thinking his actions in writing two books since Dance came out and one book since he publicly said he was clearing the decks isn't a contradiction.

 

Since he hasn't written a new book since he said he'd cleared the decks and said he wasn't taking on any new projects, there is no contradiction.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I said around and about the beginning of the previous Season of the Show that he would be holding back publishing Winds until the Show was done. That way the anticipation for the book would build all the more, as Show fans would be desperate for any new material about the main series. Thus expanding sales well beyond traditional book readers.

That at least gives a plausible, if cynical, reason for the now monumental delay. The idea that the book is simply taking this long to write is too depressing to really contemplate, even if that is probably the real truth of the matter. Then we might as well forget about ever seeing the end of this series - which we all know cannot be wrapped up in just 2 more books. I'm afraid an eighth book is beyond the realm of reasonable expectation at the current rate. So that means the series will remain open ended. A tragedy for the ages.

It certainly doesn't take this long to write one of the books. The first three books came out within four years.

So it takes around 2 years to write one. So obviously it's not the writing that takes this long, but the lack of writing.

I keep wondering why it takes this long. Even taking into account distractions this much time doesn't look reasonable at all.
My buest guess, is that he lost drive to write these books and either just procrastinates or enjoys the wealth and the recognition that comes with the success of the released books and tv series and doesn't care.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I said around and about the beginning of the previous Season of the Show that he would be holding back publishing Winds until the Show was done. That way the anticipation for the book would build all the more, as Show fans would be desperate for any new material about the main series. Thus expanding sales well beyond traditional book readers.

That at least gives a plausible, if cynical, reason for the now monumental delay. The idea that the book is simply taking this long to write is too depressing to really contemplate, even if that is probably the real truth of the matter. Then we might as well forget about ever seeing the end of this series - which we all know cannot be wrapped up in just 2 more books. I'm afraid an eighth book is beyond the realm of reasonable expectation at the current rate. So that means the series will remain open ended. A tragedy for the ages.

I think it would make sense to release it just before (months) the series, so that more book readers would watch it.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I said around and about the beginning of the previous Season of the Show that he would be holding back publishing Winds until the Show was done. That way the anticipation for the book would build all the more, as Show fans would be desperate for any new material about the main series. Thus expanding sales well beyond traditional book readers.

That at least gives a plausible, if cynical, reason for the now monumental delay. The idea that the book is simply taking this long to write is too depressing to really contemplate, even if that is probably the real truth of the matter. Then we might as well forget about ever seeing the end of this series - which we all know cannot be wrapped up in just 2 more books. I'm afraid an eighth book is beyond the realm of reasonable expectation at the current rate. So that means the series will remain open ended. A tragedy for the ages.

I'm not sure about that.  Show fans will watch the ending of the series.  It remains to be seen whether this ending will motivate them to want to read more books.  It remains to be seen whether the show ending will or won't deter even book readers from reading more books, as a book reader myself, I don't intend to buy Winds at this point, let alone any of the fake histories.  The best time to have released Winds of Winter to maximize sales would have been before season 6, so the author himself would be revealing that Jon Snow didn't stay dead.  This would have been peak interest for the books.  The next best option would be to at least get another book out while the show is still airing.  Once the show wraps a huge portion of people are going to be done with the series once and for all.

It is pretty telling, to me, of his priorities and the status of Winds,  that GRRM, in April, with 8 months left in the year, has announced Winds will not be coming out this year.  

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17 minutes ago, mzso said:

It certainly doesn't take this long to write one of the books.

Obviously, it does.

I mean, it didn't take this long to write Storm of Swords, for example. But it clearly does take this long to write Winds of Winter, since this is how long it's taken. The two are different books, with different challenges, written at different points in GRRM's life, and so it is to be expected that they will take different amounts of time. 

Nor is it a case of 'priorities' or 'caring' or timing things. Nobody wants the book finished more than GRRM does, and nobody has any plausible motive to delay its completion or release. It really is as simple as this: he isn't done. 

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22 minutes ago, mormont said:

Obviously, it does.

I mean, it didn't take this long to write Storm of Swords, for example. But it clearly does take this long to write Winds of Winter, since this is how long it's taken. The two are different books, with different challenges, written at different points in GRRM's life, and so it is to be expected that they will take different amounts of time. 

Nor is it a case of 'priorities' or 'caring' or timing things. Nobody wants the book finished more than GRRM does, and nobody has any plausible motive to delay its completion or release. It really is as simple as this: he isn't done. 

It is not obvious, as we don't know if he is "writing" at all, or sporadically or a lot.  And I am sorry to disagree, but when the author is involved in writing numerous HBO GOT spin-offs, is still attending events, is writing and editing Fire and Blood, opening theaters and doing all the other thing he is involved in, it is "obvious" to me that he is distracted and is not focusing on Winds of Winter, and it is obvious that he has taken on many, many new projects since he said he would not do this until Winds was finished.  The only way to see this is something other than procrastination born of some serious problem surrounding the writing of Winds is to engage in emperor has no clothes level of reality bending.  In my opinion.

He said Winds definitively will not be out in April 2018--with 8 months left in the year--and we know from his own words that at several points in 2015 he believed he was within 3 or 4 months of completion.  To me, it is obvious that he either has barely worked on Winds in the last two years or that belief, that was communicated to his editors about how close he was, was borne from some type of strange delusion, unless he has torn up and rewritten the bulk of a novel that he had once believed was somewhere around 70-80% completed.  Any way you look at, it's a bad sign, I don't even see this as speculation at this point, it's a fact to me.

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It certainly doesn't take this long to write one of the books. The first three books came out within four years.

 

But were written over nine. AGoT, AFFC, ADWD and TWoW have taken a minimum of 5 years apiece to write and/or publish, so this is clearly the time it takes George to write a ASoIaF novel. ACoK and ASoS were sadly the outliers, and he had to do certain things to write them in that time (in the case of ASoS this included writing on Christmas Day and barely taking a day off for two years, which neither he nor his wife were happy about) which will not happen again. Also, he was 20 years younger.

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 And I am sorry to disagree, but when the author is involved in writing numerous HBO GOT spin-offs, is still attending events, is writing and editing Fire and Blood, it is "obvious" to me that he is distracted and is not focusing on Winds of Winter, and it is obvious that he has taken on many, many new projects since he said he would not do this until Winds was finished.

George is involved in producing the new HBO GoT spin-offs because HBO legally requires his participation. So far this involvement seems to have extended to exchanging emails about ideas and having the various writers over to his house at different times for meetings. At this time GRRM is not officially writing for any of these projects, each of whom has their own, publicly-announced writer/showrunner.

I would be intrigued to learn what these "many, many" new projects are since he said he would not be doing so until Winds was done.

He said Winds definitively will not be out in April 2018, and we know from his own words that at several points in 2015 he believed he was within 3 or 4 months of completion.  To me, it is obvious that he either has barely worked on Winds in the last two years or that belief, that was communicated to his editors about how close he was, was borne from some type of strange delusion, unless he has torn up and rewritten the bulk of a novel that he had once believed was somewhere around 70-80% completed.  Any way you look at, it's a bad sign, I don't even see this as speculation at this point, it's a fact to me.

George had to be effectively bullied into giving that update in 2016 and never said that his estimates were hard and fast. The reaction since then proves conclusively that he was correct not to provide such updates, since people take his idle musings as some kind of Gospel and hold him to them as if they were promises written in blood, even when he caveats them to hell and gone.

It's clear that George believed he could deliver the novel in a few months in 2015 and this was not the case. My analysis is that he was storing himself up this problem the second he said in 2013 that he had not done much rewriting on TWoW and he didn't believe the book required thorough rewriting as ADWD had done. The second he got into a rewriting groove, he almost certainly started tearing up the book and making major changes like he did on ADWD and AFFC. It's his traditional way of working, which is why I believe he needs to address that with a proper outline (which I know he hates using, but at this point I think is necessary to get things on track).

The alternative explanation is actually far simpler: this is GRRM's usual writing pace and ADWD only took a shorter period because he benefited from the c. 500 pages of material left over from ADWD (no matter how much of it was rewritten). The material left over from ADWD for TWoW is much smaller in comparison, so he has had a lot more material to write from scratch to reach a similar size of manuscript.

Ultimately we will find out when the book is done and George is prepared to talk about the process and perhaps what can be done to minimise or avoid it for the last(?) book.

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5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

But were written over nine. AGoT, AFFC, ADWD and TWoW have taken a minimum of 5 years apiece to write and/or publish, so this is clearly the time it takes George to write a ASoIaF novel. ACoK and ASoS were sadly the outliers, and he had to do certain things to write them in that time (in the case of ASoS this included writing on Christmas Day and barely taking a day off for two years, which neither he nor his wife were happy about) which will not happen again. Also, he was 20 years younger.

George is involved in producing the new HBO GoT spin-offs because HBO legally requires his participation. So far this involvement seems to have extended to exchanging emails about ideas and having the various writers over to his house at different times for meetings. At this time GRRM is not officially writing for any of these projects, each of whom has their own, publicly-announced writer/showrunner.

I would be intrigued to learn what these "many, many" new projects are since he said he would not be doing so until Winds was done.

 

 

George had to be effectively bullied into giving that update in 2016 and never said that his estimates were hard and fast. The reaction since then proves conclusively that he was correct not to provide such updates, since people take his idle musings as some kind of Gospel and hold him to them as if they were promises written in blood, even when he caveats them to hell and gone.

It's clear that George believed he could deliver the novel in a few months in 2015 and this was not the case. My analysis is that he was storing himself up this problem the second he said in 2013 that he had not done much rewriting on TWoW and he didn't believe the book required thorough rewriting as ADWD had done. The second he got into a rewriting groove, he almost certainly started tearing up the book and making major changes like he did on ADWD and AFFC. It's his traditional way of working, which is why I believe he needs to address that with a proper outline (which I know he hates using, but at this point I think is necessary to get things on track).

The alternative explanation is actually far simpler: this is GRRM's usual writing pace and ADWD only took a shorter period because he benefited from the c. 500 pages of material left over from ADWD (no matter how much of it was rewritten). The material left over from ADWD for TWoW is much smaller in comparison, so he has had a lot more material to write from scratch to reach a similar size of manuscript.

Ultimately we will find out when the book is done and George is prepared to talk about the process and perhaps what can be done to minimise or avoid it for the last(?) book.

How can it be his 'usual' writing pace when we are looking at an 8 year gap between Dance and Winds, and that is the absolute best case scenario of him getting winds out in 2019?  I just don't get how you can come to this conclusion.  It seems blindingly obvious that something happened after Storm of Swords in terms of the story and the author.  Things became complicated, writing pace slowed to a crawl.  At the time this was blamed on the "meereen knot" but hindsight shows that the meereen knot had to have been a proxy for some other issue, since if the meereen knot was what had slowed down Feast and Dance, then there is no reason that Winds would take a minimum of 8 years.  

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7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

How can it be his 'usual' writing pace when we are looking at an 8 year gap between Dance and Winds, and that is the absolute best case scenario of him getting winds out in 2019?  I just don't get how you can come to this conclusion.  It seems blindingly obvious that something happened after Storm of Swords in terms of the story and the author.  Things became complicated, writing pace slowed to a crawl.  At the time this was blamed on the "meereen knot" but hindsight shows that the meereen knot had to have been a proxy for some other issue, since if the meereen knot was what had slowed down Feast and Dance, then there is no reason that Winds would take a minimum of 8 years.  

He produced 1,000 new manuscript pages in 6 years for ADWD (since 500 MS pages were held over from AFFC) and needs to produce 1,350 MS pages for TWoW (since 150 MS pages were held over from ADWD). It's pretty straightforward maths to realise that's going to take a longer period of time than 6 years (albeit accepting this is all a massive simplification). So about 8 years (which is 2019, not this year) sounds about right.

Also we know what happened during and after ASoS: he introduced the gap, he wrote with the gap in place, wrote hundreds of pages with the gap in place, realised that sucked, removed the gap, junked hundreds of pages, started again and ended up creating a titanic timeline mess which was still not fully resolved (and neither was the Meereenese Knot) by the end of ADWD. I also think that, psychologically, he really wants ADoS to be the last book as that would be a springboard to write it more quickly, but this requires things to happen in TWoW which I think he is finding hard to cram into the novel. Based on where ADWD ended, he needs Dany to be in Westeros quite quickly but based on his writing style in the last few books, he'll be lucky to get her back to Meereen and resolve the situation there before the end of the novel, so an awful lot of plot nuking is probably going on behind the scenes.

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Even if you credit that GOT-SOS was nine years in total, that is still three years per book.  Unless you are somehow adding 9 years onto the 1996-2000, to get to to 13 or 14 years--which I don't agree on that, but even that timeline of 14 years for 3 books is less than 5 years per book.  So by any maths that I can understand, things have been devolving since Feast came out and have devolved more alarmingly on Winds of Winter.

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