Do we think George passed 1500 manuscript pages?

[Greywater-Watch]

Is there a precise summary of GRRM's recent comments on this (date and exact wording)?

I remember that he said some months ago something about a conference he wanted to attend (summer 2020?), when he would allow people to imprison him if he hadn't released TWOW until then.

And then he said somewhere in this year that he was still "months away" from finishing TWOW.

 

[mormont]

11 hours ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

I mean done, ready, and polished. I disagree with the notion, that once GRRM reaches 1500 we'll get a book. In fact GRMM wrote a lot more in 2004/5 for the Big Feast, and after some convincing he published AFfC. Do we think such convincing will work now, absolutely not. George doesn't want another Feast/Dance situation, and neither does he want another ending like Dace with a lot of build up and no payoffs.

But here is the big question: did GRRM reach the 1500 stage? He keeps saying he is a slow writer. Is he that slow?

'Done, ready and polished' isn't that simple. We know that GRRM regularly takes apart chapters that he had previously considered 'done, ready and polished' because of later chapters. Nothing's 'done, ready and polished' until publication. 

GRRM is a slow writer partly because of this - the major problems with the last two books involved rewriting material multiple times and this accounted for much of the delay. No reason to think this is any different. 

[SeanF]

On 12/3/2019 at 12:04 AM, Lord Varys said:

I can only speculate but I guess George wasn't exactly happy with the AFfC mess. That book lacked the other half and it lacked a proper ending (Cersei/Jaime/Brienne work much better with the ADwD chapters attached to the story).

But I must admit I don't know why not half or so of TWoW could be published, especially those chapters dealing with the aftermath of the fighting. I guess there is no small chance that certain crucial far-reaching plot lines really take up steam in TWoW.

At this point they are not yet there. And what they will do/how they will get along with the others after they have arrived is also a pretty complex question.

 

My guess is that the Slavers get kerb-stomped outside Meereen, and that Volantis goes up in revolution.  That would enable Daenerys to get to Westeros fairly quickly, with the backing of Volantene naval power, rather than have a protracted campaign across Western Essos.

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

My guess is that the Slavers get kerb-stomped outside Meereen, and that Volantis goes up in revolution.  That would enable Daenerys to get to Westeros fairly quickly, with the backing of Volantene naval power, rather than have a protracted campaign across Western Essos.

Volantis is not going to revolt while Daenerys Targaryen is still presumed dead. And nobody will know she is still alive until she has taken over the Dothraki - which is not going to happen overnight. True, with Drogon she can fly vast distances in a short amount of time, but she would not fly from Vaes Dothrak to Volantis for no reason.

Besides, the Dothraki will try to sell her their version of her fate as conqueress - they are going to want all of Essos, from the Bones to Narrow Sea, and from the Shivering Sea to the Summer Sea. And she will have to deliver at least something on that front. Westeros is no priority for Daenerys at this point, and is definitely irrelevant for the Dothraki. She will have to throw them a bone in exchange for them abandoning slavery - which she definitely will have force them to do.

I mean, this is not a series where the Dothraki are going to be bunch of faceless, nameless minions without an agenda of their own. They will have plans of their own and they will have a political reason why they are going to acknowledge Dany as the savior and god-empress in the end. And this will also be a process - they are not likely to throw that amount of power on her without her first overcoming serious opposition.

Not to mention that the anti-slavery thing demands the destruction of Qarth, and the Three Daughters, possibly even Qohor and Norvos (the Dothraki are going to want Qohor to wash away the humiliation of the past).

All or some of that make it very clear that the plot is not going to move to Westeros soon. Daenerys has her own story in the east now, and that story has to play - and George did everything in his power to make it a broader story in ADwD, introducing many new characters and plot lines and conflicts.

I can see Dany a lot of conquering and destroying of cities in TWoW - but I cannot see her plot going further than finally deciding they want to go to Westeros now. Such a development can only start when Dany interacts with both Moqorro and, especially Archmaester Marwyn. And the latter is not going to be an easy conversation.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Volantis is not going to revolt while Daenerys Targaryen is still presumed dead. And nobody will know she is still alive until she has taken over the Dothraki - which is not going to happen overnight. True, with Drogon she can fly vast distances in a short amount of time, but she would not fly from Vaes Dothrak to Volantis for no reason.

Besides, the Dothraki will try to sell her their version of her fate as conqueress - they are going to want all of Essos, from the Bones to Narrow Sea, and from the Shivering Sea to the Summer Sea. And she will have to deliver at least something on that front. Westeros is no priority for Daenerys at this point, and is definitely irrelevant for the Dothraki. She will have to throw them a bone in exchange for them abandoning slavery - which she definitely will have force them to do.

I mean, this is not a series where the Dothraki are going to be bunch of faceless, nameless minions without an agenda of their own. They will have plans of their own and they will have a political reason why they are going to acknowledge Dany as the savior and god-empress in the end. And this will also be a process - they are not likely to throw that amount of power on her without her first overcoming serious opposition.

Not to mention that the anti-slavery thing demands the destruction of Qarth, and the Three Daughters, possibly even Qohor and Norvos (the Dothraki are going to want Qohor to wash away the humiliation of the past).

All or some of that make it very clear that the plot is not going to move to Westeros soon. Daenerys has her own story in the east now, and that story has to play - and George did everything in his power to make it a broader story in ADwD, introducing many new characters and plot lines and conflicts.

I can see Dany a lot of conquering and destroying of cities in TWoW - but I cannot see her plot going further than finally deciding they want to go to Westeros now. Such a development can only start when Dany interacts with both Moqorro and, especially Archmaester Marwyn. And the latter is not going to be an easy conversation.

I think it will be more that first the Volantene fleet revolts, (in all likelihood, the Red Priests will be assuring the soldiers and sailors that Daenerys is still alive), and then the effect will ripple back to Volantis.

Certainly, I have no idea how her dealings with the Dothraki will proceed.  As you say, they will need to be offered something, even if she passes some sort of trial by ordeal which proves that she is the leader they should follow.

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think it will be more that first the Volantene fleet revolts, (in all likelihood, the Red Priests will be assuring the soldiers and sailors that Daenerys is still alive), and then the effect will ripple back to Volantis.

I'm sure Moqorro is there to ensure things go how he and Benerro want it with the coming fleet, but I don't see that having quick ripple effects back in Volantis itself. Of course, once it will be known that Dany is still alive and intends to come west the Widow of the Waterfront is going to take over Volantis, that much is clear, but that will only be the first step. They will have to get past the Three Daughters. And there I don't see a successful slave uprising. It is 5:1 slaves in Volantis but only 3:1 in the Three Daughters, and there they don't have slave soldiers but free men and sellswords and sellsails. They are likely going to crush any slave revolt after Volantis has fallen, to unite against the threat Dany poses, possibly supported by Euron who I think will deal Dany a massive blow in the mother of all naval battles.

Quote

Certainly, I have no idea how her dealings with the Dothraki will proceed.  As you say, they will need to be offered something, even if she passes some sort of trial by ordeal which proves that she is the leader they should follow.

Depending on the number of chapters Dany will have in TWoW easily half of her chapters - or more - could be dealing with simply her winning the Dothraki. This would be a ludicrous story if she essentially just magically took them over in one chapter. And once that's done her next move will depend entirely on her goals and her knowledge then - I don't think her becoming the ruler of the Dothraki is making Westeros going to appear as her top priority. She will have great strength, of course, but also even more responsibility to her new people, and there are great other options then technically possible. They could cross the Bones to destroy the Fortress Cities and invade Yi Ti. They could try to rebuild the Valyrian empire with Dany and the Dothraki ruling it - if Dany took Dothraki consorts there could be a Dothraki dragonlord dynasty.

All those possibilities should come up in some way, and there have to be reasons why they don't take such roads.

The idea that Dany really gives a fig about Aegon and the Iron Throne after she has just become the ruler of a people which could effectively try conquer all of known Essos is not all that likely. What's Westeros compared to all that? Especially to her who has never been there?

And with all those resources she has no need to rush things. She is still young, she could conquer Westeros next spring or even only the spring thereafter while in the meantime conquering all of Essos and establish a working empire with a proper hierarchy and bureaucracy and all that.

I don't see any chance that politics is going to be deciding factor in her decision to go Westeros. It will be prophecy and magic, i.e. news about the Others and the promised prince stuff. But for that she doesn't only need Moqorro or other red priests but, especially, Marwyn, and he seems to be very far away from her right now.

Addendum:

What could be a good finale for Dany in TWoW would be her revisiting the House of the Undying and finally meeting with Quaithe (revealing the mystery that surrounds her) and Marwyn in the ruins of a destroyed Qarth.

[Ninefingers]

Late to the party, but to address OP's titular question:

Yes, Martin has almost assuredly written 1500 manuscript pages. And if I were to guess, he's discarded and/or rewritten a huge portion of them. 

Back in 2015, he considered finishing in 5 months "very do-able". To me, these don't sound like the words of a person who has few pages and needs to draft, but someone who has a good draft and needs to polish and edit. 

Of course, he's famously scrapped huge portions because he was unhappy with it, and it seems very likely to me that this is the case here.  

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Ninefingers said:

Late to the party, but to address OP's titular question:

Yes, Martin has almost assuredly written 1500 manuscript pages. And if I were to guess, he's discarded and/or rewritten a huge portion of them. 

Back in 2015, he considered finishing in 5 months "very do-able". To me, these don't sound like the words of a person who has few pages and needs to draft, but someone who has a good draft and needs to polish and edit. 

Of course, he's famously scrapped huge portions because he was unhappy with it, and it seems very likely to me that this is the case here.  

I'd not bet on that. The book doesn't have to have 1,500 finished manuscript pages to be published. It could also have just 1,300 or 1,200 or even less.

George doesn't really seem to write many drafts, either. He writes and rewrites entire chapters. It is theoretically possible he had enough pages to publish a book, but I think he most likely was not exactly there yet and got unhappy with the stuff he had produced. Compared to the relatively trivial Meereenese Knot things must be much more complex in TWoW in Westeros if, as we assume, some plots there might start to converge. Not all that many, of course, but some.

[Ninefingers]

I should have been more clear. I'm not suggesting he's sitting on 1,500 complete pages, but rather that over the last several years he's written far in excess of that, many of which have been discarded/rewritten, etc. 

Let's use the child in the strawberry patch analogy:

If you drop off a child in a strawberry patch with a 1 Liter container, and come back later to find it full, what volume of strawberries did the kid pick?

A: 1 Liter, because that's what you currently have.

B: (If you've ever taken a kid strawberry picking you know what's coming)  1 Liter you have plus all of the strawberries the kid ate. 

I interpreted OP's question akin to situation B. Martin has some number of pages "ready" for publication, but when you add in all of the other pages he's written that didn't make the cut for one reason or another, that number exceeds 1,500. 

If OP's question was actually, "Does Martin have 1,500 pages ready for publication today?" then my answer changes. I'm reasonably confident the answer to that is no. 

  

 

[Lord Varys]

10 minutes ago, Ninefingers said:

I should have been more clear. I'm not suggesting he's sitting on 1,500 complete pages, but rather that over the last several years he's written far in excess of that, many of which have been discarded/rewritten, etc. 

Let's use the child in the strawberry patch analogy:

If you drop off a child in a strawberry patch with a 1 Liter container, and come back later to find it full, what volume of strawberries did the kid pick?

A: 1 Liter, because that's what you currently have.

B: (If you've ever taken a kid strawberry picking you know what's coming)  1 Liter you have plus all of the strawberries the kid ate. 

I interpreted OP's question akin to situation B. Martin has some number of pages "ready" for publication, but when you add in all of the other pages he's written that didn't make the cut for one reason or another, that number exceeds 1,500. 

If OP's question was actually, "Does Martin have 1,500 pages ready for publication today?" then my answer changes. I'm reasonably confident the answer to that is no.

That certainly could be, although in the digital age that's moot. We know that George does not delete/throw away abandoned or discarded chapters, but if we take the example of, say, the Prologue of AFfC which exist in a number of versions from different POVs (among them those of Mollander and Rosey) then the, say, 100 manuscript pages of material from those different versions really are just virtual (it would be great to read all that one day).

My personal guess is that TWoW is taking as long as it does because writing it is much more difficult than writing ADwD - which would have been comparatively easy a book which dealt only with 3-5 POVs for the first half, and only continued some other plot lines in the end. But still Meereen and Tyrion posed massive problems for George.

It is not unlikely that George has been stuck in a similar conundrum - or multiple such - immediately after the end of the two battles or at some other point around what would be the middle of TWoW. If that's the case he could still be away from 1,500 manuscript pages as drafts/discarded material.

[Ninefingers]

26 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

My personal guess is that TWoW is taking as long as it does because writing it is much more difficult than writing ADwD 

I always come back to this when pondering the time it takes:

Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked. You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and the Cocteau and whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't, and that was true for me even when I was in my 20s.

Martin wrote this a few years back and it's always rung true for me. Lots of things have an impact, but sometimes it's just hard.

[Lord Daedrunk]

On 12/3/2019 at 10:41 AM, Lord Varys said:

I honestly think this is going to be dead end - the hope to use this thing was what triggered Asha to look of Theon again so they can eventually overthrow Euron, but nobody is going to a elect broken eunuch king, so if something grows out of that I can only see that after Euron's death at the very end of the series. If Theon survives the story he could then be the Tyland Lannister of the Iron Islands or something like that.

I wanted to comment on this particular part real quick, only because I'm on a re-read of the series and about half way through ACoK, though I'm sure it has been brought up for consideration at some point unbeknownst to me. 

While I agree that it would be a tough sell to the Ironborn to elect Theon (Asha aside for just this discussion) as King (or Lord) of the Iron Islands being that he's "broken" and now unable to produce children (eunuch), however, I would say that the selling of Theon, the rightful heir, would be made much easier if he had already produced an heir. In his first chapter in ACoK he is headed for Pyke to present his and Robb's plan to Balon, as you probably recall he beds the captain's daughter multiple times during the course of his voyage and even makes the comment that he has deposited so much of his seed in her that she is surely with child. This got me thinking that perhaps in the end a victorious Theon could one day return to the Iron Islands to rule if his bastard can be found and named as his heir setting up a Greyjoy succession. I feel that hypothetically having won his honor back by defeating Euron, or helping to defeat Euron in some way, he gains the glory/respect of his people and the introduction of his true heir (bastard or not) would allow him to potentially rule. Or perhaps all of that was written just to show how much he will change over the course of his character arc. Which is fine, too. I just wanted to get that out there having recently stumbled upon it and reading how you believe the Iron Islanders will never elect Theon King. However, my best guess is still a Queen Asha with Theon as her hand if the Islands remain independent when all is said and done. 

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Ninefingers said:

I always come back to this when pondering the time it takes:

Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked. You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and the Cocteau and whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't, and that was true for me even when I was in my 20s.

Martin wrote this a few years back and it's always rung true for me. Lots of things have an impact, but sometimes it's just hard.

Sure. In fact if I had known what kind of writer George is - how slow his writing is going and how difficult it is for him to finish the projects he started (he just could finish standalone novels and effectively only standalone short stories and novellas - even the Tuf series got no ending) I'd have never picked up ASoIaF. It would have been a tough thing for him to finish even if he had started writing it in 1970s rather than the 1990s.

His problems are not distractions or age or other obligations - it is how he writes and the trouble he has with his writing. And in the end he is only that good of a writer because he constantly rewrites and polishes what he has written. If he didn't do that, Dany's story of AGoT would have been the original outline plot not the plot we got in AGoT - which was vastly better than the original thing.

1 hour ago, Lord Daedrunk said:

I wanted to comment on this particular part real quick, only because I'm on a re-read of the series and about half way through ACoK, though I'm sure it has been brought up for consideration at some point unbeknownst to me. 

While I agree that it would be a tough sell to the Ironborn to elect Theon (Asha aside for just this discussion) as King (or Lord) of the Iron Islands being that he's "broken" and now unable to produce children (eunuch), however, I would say that the selling of Theon, the rightful heir, would be made much easier if he had already produced an heir. In his first chapter in ACoK he is headed for Pyke to present his and Robb's plan to Balon, as you probably recall he beds the captain's daughter multiple times during the course of his voyage and even makes the comment that he has deposited so much of his seed in her that she is surely with child. This got me thinking that perhaps in the end a victorious Theon could one day return to the Iron Islands to rule if his bastard can be found and named as his heir setting up a Greyjoy succession. I feel that hypothetically having won his honor back by defeating Euron, or helping to defeat Euron in some way, he gains the glory/respect of his people and the introduction of his true heir (bastard or not) would allow him to potentially rule. Or perhaps all of that was written just to show how much he will change over the course of his character arc. Which is fine, too. I just wanted to get that out there having recently stumbled upon it and reading how you believe the Iron Islanders will never elect Theon King. However, my best guess is still a Queen Asha with Theon as her hand if the Islands remain independent when all is said and done. 

Well, I honestly don't think there will be another Kingsmoot. The point of the first was to hammer home the fact how a man like Euron could take advantage of that. And considering that all the Ironborn follow Euron now he will lead them to their doom. Euron certainly won't survive the series, but he is not going to die alone, he will take Ironborn culture and the entire old way with him to the Drowned God where that shit belongs.

What will remain is going to be a couple of impoversished, over-aged islanders lacking ships.

If Theon survives he certainly could make himself the lord of the cravens and children and old men who remained behind - and there is certainly some kind of poetic justice if a broken, crippled eunuch were to rule over a dying people and culture, but I'm not holding my breath for Theon surviving the series. He has betrayed his foster family and murdered innocent children (and loyal Ironborn murdered, too). I don't think he has suffered enough already, and even if Bran were to forgive him that doesn't mean the author is going to let him get off the hook.

Asha definitely would be the better ruler, and if Euron died she certainly has a claim as the last proper Greyjoy left. They won't continue the election nonsense the next time.

[Makk]

I don't think he will release the book just because it reaches 1500 pages similar to what we got with books 4 and 5. If it has some sort of physical publishing limitation they will just split copies of winds of winter into 2 books like they did with some versions of A storm of swords.

[BlackLightning]

On 12/4/2019 at 11:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

Volantis is not going to revolt while Daenerys Targaryen is still presumed dead. And nobody will know she is still alive until she has taken over the Dothraki - which is not going to happen overnight. True, with Drogon she can fly vast distances in a short amount of time, but she would not fly from Vaes Dothrak to Volantis for no reason.

Besides, the Dothraki will try to sell her their version of her fate as conqueress - they are going to want all of Essos, from the Bones to Narrow Sea, and from the Shivering Sea to the Summer Sea. And she will have to deliver at least something on that front. Westeros is no priority for Daenerys at this point, and is definitely irrelevant for the Dothraki. She will have to throw them a bone in exchange for them abandoning slavery - which she definitely will have force them to do.

I mean, this is not a series where the Dothraki are going to be bunch of faceless, nameless minions without an agenda of their own. They will have plans of their own and they will have a political reason why they are going to acknowledge Dany as the savior and god-empress in the end. And this will also be a process - they are not likely to throw that amount of power on her without her first overcoming serious opposition.

Not to mention that the anti-slavery thing demands the destruction of Qarth, and the Three Daughters, possibly even Qohor and Norvos (the Dothraki are going to want Qohor to wash away the humiliation of the past).

All or some of that make it very clear that the plot is not going to move to Westeros soon. Daenerys has her own story in the east now, and that story has to play - and George did everything in his power to make it a broader story in ADwD, introducing many new characters and plot lines and conflicts.

I can see Dany a lot of conquering and destroying of cities in TWoW - but I cannot see her plot going further than finally deciding they want to go to Westeros now. Such a development can only start when Dany interacts with both Moqorro and, especially Archmaester Marwyn. And the latter is not going to be an easy conversation.

Do you think Dany is going to have any contact with Yi Ti or Asshai.

I'm pretty sure they endorse slavery. Will she send a message that will get them to stop, will they acquiesce from afar and send an emissary or will she have to pay them a visit with Drogon?

And I like how you brought up Marwyn? Everyone seems to forget that Marwyn trained Mirri Maz Duur and Marwyn is basically a magician. Dany has a deep distrust/hatred/fear for magic practitioners (for good reason) and so her alliance with Moqorro and Marwyn will probably be off to a very rocky start. And that's assuming, IF, they ally at all.

When you say the Three Daughters are you talking about Myr, Tyrosh and Lys?

[Tyrion1991]

I think he’s physically written far more than 1500 pages. The problem is that he’s not satisfied with the book and probably has some big structural issues. There’s simply too much plot going on across too vast a distance with too many POV characters.

He still needs to finish ADWD and only then can he start contracting the story. The theory is that it all snowballs from there but Iam very sceptical that can work in practice.

[Lord Varys]

42 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Do you think Dany is going to have any contact with Yi Ti or Asshai.

George has confirmed she isn't going to go Asshai although he seems to have once planned to have her go there. But I think it is given she will return to Qarth.

I don't think she is going to go to Yi Ti, but there has to be a reason why she and her Dothraki do not cross the Bones, why they go west instead of east. The Fortress Cities blocking the way east have been vexing the Dothraki for centuries. Many khals have wanted to go there, and if Dany unites them the dreams of conquest they will have will involve Yi Ti, not Westeros which is barbaric, savage, and primitive country at the end of the world which doesn't interest them at all.

It would be great if some YiTish were at Vaes Dothrak when Dany arrives there, but I don't think we are ever going to see any of the cities of the far east.

42 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

I'm pretty sure they endorse slavery. Will she send a message that will get them to stop, will they acquiesce from afar and send an emissary or will she have to pay them a visit with Drogon?

I don't think she will feel responsible for how things are in this completely different cultural sphere. The Dothraki will have to abandon slavery, of course, and for the slavery from Slaver's Bay to Lorath she can feel responsible as a woman of dragonlord descent.

With the Dothraki abandoning slavery and the slave trade being destroyed from Qarth to Lorath slavery should essentially be abolished from the Jade Gates to Braavos.

42 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

And I like how you brought up Marwyn? Everyone seems to forget that Marwyn trained Mirri Maz Duur and Marwyn is basically a magician. Dany has a deep distrust/hatred/fear for magic practitioners (for good reason) and so her alliance with Moqorro and Marwyn will probably be off to a very rocky start. And that's assuming, IF, they ally at all.

I've not forgotten that, which is the reason why I said there conversation might be difficult. But Marwyn definitely knows things she has to know. And we already have an implicit conversation that Marwyn is going to show up eventually since George has revealed in one of the versions of ADwD he has written Marwyn had already shown up when Quenty arrived.

42 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

When you say the Three Daughters are you talking about Myr, Tyrosh and Lys?

Yes.

[mormont]

12 hours ago, Makk said:

I don't think he will release the book just because it reaches 1500 pages similar to what we got with books 4 and 5. If it has some sort of physical publishing limitation they will just split copies of winds of winter into 2 books like they did with some versions of A storm of swords.

This only happened in the paperback publication (in some countries): the hardback of ASOS was and is one volume, and it was released as one volume. When people discuss the physical limitations here, they're talking about the ability to publish TWOW as one hardback volume. 

[Erminetorrent]

I'd say it's highly likely. Considering what he has done in the past, I'd claim that it is actually almost certain. Most writers probably cannot come up with six or seven good pages a day, at least I can't, and I'm aware that he does other stuff too, besides writing. But even if he would only produce something along the lines of 250 or 500 words in a day, during most days, he would still have to have a tremendous amount by now. From what I have understood, George doesn't want to publish Winds in two parts, so I think that there is quite a lot of hard decisions he has to make, editing-wise. 

[QhorinQuarterhand]

On 12/2/2019 at 2:54 AM, rotting sea cow said:

I have no idea how manuscript pages translates into book pages. The manuscript version of my thesis was about 800 pages long with 1.5 line spacing, ample margins and paragraph breaks, oversized figures and a bigger font. The more attractive final copy was only ~250 pages.

What I'm certain is if GRRM is sticking to two more books (he has repeatedly and recently confirmed this) , TWOW must be freaking long. We have discussed here before. If TWOW is ADWD-ish long, you can fit around four chapters per PoV, and there are many PoVs with lots of thing to do. In particular Dany. So, I'm guessing a two volume book.

But I fully agree with @Lord Varys above. It is not the number of pages that is holding him, it is the adequate resolution of narrative problems that arise from this complex story. The battles are (relatively) easy. The post battle conflict is not. There are time line issues, particularly coordination between the Essos and Westeros plots. There are characters that should be more difficult to write, Bran post-enlightenment, post-resurrection Jon, Dany post-ascension, etc.

I'm in the camp that believes both the TWOW material and ADOS material will take two AFFC sized books to complete. There's just sooooo much that still has to happen.