GRRM’s latest blog post

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:11 PM, Werthead said:

I think the estimate would be more set in stone if he gave a manuscript page number update. He's been reluctant to do that, but that I think would be a more solid view of progress. Although if he doesn't know the final hard MS page limit, because it's not more flexible than the set-in-stone 1500 page limit of earlier books, that might not help either.

So when he says that he has 500 pages left to go, does that mean that he has around 1000 pages "locked in"? IIRC, you said before that he can "undo" even locked in chapters because of his writing process.

[Werthead]

31 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

So when he says that he has 500 pages left to go, does that mean that he has around 1000 pages "locked in"? IIRC, you said before that he can "undo" even locked in chapters because of his writing process.

Prior to ADWD, he'd "lock in" a chapter and consider it done and untouchable and roll on. With ADWD, because of the Meereenese Knot, for the first time he'd "unlock" previously-completed chapters to address the timeline problems caused by the Knot. This caused considerable discrepancies to enter his reporting process, which is why he abandoned that process for TWoW.

His recent decision to reverse that and begin talking about completed pages, percentages, how much he has left to go etc is probably a sign of general optimism that progress has been made, whilst not giving a precise page count (his recent statement that he has 1100-1200 pages done, not precisely, say, 1,162 or whatever) is likely wariness in case a Knot-like situation arises in the latter part of finalising the book and he has to go back to earlier chapters to revise them to fit in with changes in the ending.

[butterweedstrover]

On 7/19/2022 at 10:56 AM, Werthead said:

True, or possibly reading his blog entries over the past two years or listening to the podcast interview.

The online discourse around HotD seems reasonable. Looking at the various Reddits, forums, Facebook pages etc, there seems a reasonable degree of engagement, not far off the off-season between seasons of GoT. And of course the overwhelming majority of people who watched GoT and who will watch HotD never really talked about the show online at all.

I suspect HotD will do fine, as long as it's not a total disaster quality-wise.

Wert, Martin mostly gets excited about award shows, television adaptations, and Hollywood buzz. 

He loves going to premieres, press events, and galas. His initial career was in television. 

Writing wise he has mostly been a no show since his contract with HBO. He then follows up GOT with a whole new slate of releases and posts that he feels “sorry” for people who are stuck up on Winds. 
 

Massive backlash ensues and his tone changes all the sudden to appease fans. He is very well aware of what people say else wise he wouldn’t have specific complaints about online commentary. 

None of this suggests genuine excitement. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

12 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

His initial career was in television. 

IIRC, he started out as a novelist and only became a TV writer when The Armageddon Rag underperformed in terms of sales.

[Werthead]

43 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

None of this suggests genuine excitement. 

I think after the better part of twelve years of providing minimal (often, none at all) and vague updates about TWoW (vague even during the positive-feeling year of 2020), a sudden (possibly dramatic) shift to giving percentage and page-count ballparks for the state of the book and  how much more work needs to be done is fairly significant. George doesn't go on TV and say he's three-quarters done (several times!) if he's not in a more confident frame of mind about the book than at any time previously.

Of course, this optimism could be misplaced and George could be about to crash headlong into the knot of all knots (Meereense or otherwise), which will become clear in time.

[mcbigski]

1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

His initial career was in television. 

 

That's entirely wrong.

It may well be that what started out as a passion project has turned into a job for him.  Or mayhaps his commercial success has made him more of a perfectionist, since the marginal value of his next $X million is rather smaller than it used to be. 

Seems to me it's like his maybe not exact quote but bear with me "I enjoy having written more than I enjoy writing."  (I think that's somewhere in the So Spake Martin, if you want to get a better feel for the man.) 

I suspect that time delay wise, we're through the longest part of his gardening style.  That is, the difficult parts now are likely more about sticking the landing than figuring out where to go.  So my hope is that the following book has a much shorter production time.  He's likely chomping at the bit to get a lot of those arcs realized.

 

[sifth]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think after the better part of twelve years of providing minimal (often, none at all) and vague updates about TWoW (vague even during the positive-feeling year of 2020), a sudden (possibly dramatic) shift to giving percentage and page-count ballparks for the state of the book and  how much more work needs to be done is fairly significant. George doesn't go on TV and say he's three-quarters done (several times!) if he's not in a more confident frame of mind about the book than at any time previously.

Of course, this optimism could be misplaced and George could be about to crash headlong into the knot of all knots (Meereense or otherwise), which will become clear in time.

From his interviews this past October, I get the feeling Bran is his new knot. He seems to have a hard time with the magical elements of Bran's chapters.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

9 hours ago, sifth said:

From his interviews this past October, I get the feeling Bran is his new knot. He seems to have a hard time with the magical elements of Bran's chapters.

GRRM has always said that Bran is the hardest character for him to write.

 

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

George doesn't go on TV and say he's three-quarters done (several times!) if he's not in a more confident frame of mind about the book than at any time previously.

On the other hand, he was directly asked about it by the host, so maybe he wanted to give the most optimistic answer possible.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Speaking of blog posts, does George have a secret gambling addiction? I can’t think of any other reason why he would need to start a Patreon. (And if he wants us to subscribe, he should use extra bits of lore that were cut from TWOIAF or something. We want words, George, not your figurine collection).

[Ran]

The Patreon is actually for Highgarden Entertainment, which is the corporation that owns the Jean Cocteau and Beastly Books. They're obviously trying to diversify income streams for those businesses, and since George owns them they're no doubt hoping having some GRRM content exclusive to them will help boost interest and revenue. I'm guessing all the Patreon money is intended for the businesses and not for GRRM himself.

 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

They're obviously trying to diversify income streams for those businesses, and since George owns them they're no doubt hoping having some GRRM content exclusive to them will help boost interest and revenue.

I mean, they're not wrong. There is this book that GRRM is working on that would very much boost both interest and revenue. Something about winter. 

[Werthead]

On 1/31/2023 at 10:17 PM, Ran said:

The Patreon is actually for Highgarden Entertainment, which is the corporation that owns the Jean Cocteau and Beastly Books. They're obviously trying to diversify income streams for those businesses, and since George owns them they're no doubt hoping having some GRRM content exclusive to them will help boost interest and revenue. I'm guessing all the Patreon money is intended for the businesses and not for GRRM himself.

This is true, and those businesses employ a lot of people etc. I think the optics do need work though: GRRM is worth eight figures, maybe not far off nine, so him launching a Patreon when he clearly does not need the income for himself just looks bizarre. The fact he wants those businesses to succeed on their own merits and he's not just going to subsidise them from his book/HBO income is very fair, and crowdfunding is now used by very successful entities (the giga-corporation Hasbro uses it a lot for various projects) more for the PR than because they necessarily need it. But I think him then putting his own material into the mix confuses matters.

The New York Times bestselling-author and creator of the most popular shared fantasy world of all time (Forgotten Realms) Ed Greenwood also just launched a Patreon and there was some crinkling of eyes over that, but it also came out a few months ago from an investigative book that TSR bought Ed's IP from him lock stock and barrel for $5,000 in 1986, so he's not made any money off the IP itself (bar the stuff he was contracted to write for them), WotC have refused to publish any of his recent books (or anyone else's, bar only Bob Salvatore's) and his finances are not brilliant. So in that case the need is much more clearly stated.