George R.R. Martin, in a long post about his unfinished novel The Winds of Winter, talks about progress made this year, and his disappointment over failing to meet the original and an extended deadline for turning in the manuscript.
THE WINDS OF WINTER is not finished….
Nor is it likely to be finished tomorrow, or next week. Yes, there’s a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters. (Those ‘no pages done’ reports were insane, the usual garbage internet journalism that I have learned to despise). But there’s also a lot still left to write. I am months away still… and that’s if the writing goes well. (Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t.) Chapters still to write, of course… but also rewriting. I always do a lot of rewriting, sometimes just polishing, sometimes pretty major restructures….
I am going back to my stance from last March, before all this. It will be done when it’s done. And it will be as good as I can possibly make it.
Martin also engages the problematic fact that the HBO adaptation has outpaced the original work.
Having said all that, I know what the next question will be, because hundreds of you have already asked it of me. Will the show ‘spoil’ the novels?
Maybe. Yes and no….
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Sigh. That was a painful read, you really get the disappointment that GRRM is having at the moment. All the best to him, and illegitimi non carborundum.
Well, it was inevitable. Even if it hadn’t happened with this book it certainly would have with the next. I’d prefer Martin to put his efforts more into making the best book possible, than having to meet a deadline for the show, and that seems the likely scenario now.
I saw the first line of the headline and my tummy had what can only be described as, pace a previous thread, a ‘trout’ moment. Dammit.
I don’t know. Last book felt a bit like Jordan at his worst. Enough that I’m not really that interested in the next book. Better he takes his time and tightens up the story line than that he publishes something like that again.
😐
This is my surprised face.
I’m glad his works are so popular and I’m glad he’s done well off them. He seems to be a decent bloke trying to do right by people.
I’m sorry for the ridiculous pressure people put on him. I hope he has opportunities to relax and replenish.
Far more important that he gets it done right than done fast. And more important still that he takes time out to enjoy life along the way.
So: go ahead and watch the show (we are all unsullied now), or put it off till the books come out – by which time you will no doubt be able to have them beamed directly to your disembodied brain? Heck you’ll probably have the books beamed too, straight from Martin’s brain, imprisoned in a station orbiting around Pluto and guarded by an interplanetary task force.
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly
Sometime in the six years between A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, when his blog non-updates were a thing of mingled joy and frustration, I gave up on the whole thing. I still haven’t read the latter and probably won’t until he finishes the series. I just wish GRRM wouldn’t give himself such a hard time over it.
Good for GRRM ! It will be done when it is done.
Let the show be its own thing at this point. I have only watched the first season but I hear it’s still quite engaging.
On the other hand, I got A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms for Christmas and I’m just starting it now.
Books and the visual media almost always diverge anyway. Let each go its own way. Both will be enjoyable (though joy is not really a GoT adjective).
Let GRRM follow his own muse!!!
Miyazaki Hayao wrote a manga of “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” while he himself was also making the film, and both diverged considerably.
Best wishes to Mr. Martin in his endeavours.
Writing books, or stories, is like any creative endeavor. You don’t follow a recipe and put it in the oven at 350 degrees and have it come out in 45 minutes bubbling hot with the cover forming a nice melted cheese crust over the book contents.
So while, yes, I would like to read the next book, and the delays do sap narrative momentum, there are more books out there to read in the meantime than I can possibly read. Even if I just wanted to stick to epic fantasy, there’s still more out there, and more good stuff out there.
This does go to my annoyance with first books in a series that don’t provide an ‘off ramp’. If you can tell a solid story in the first volume AND promise me more for a subsequent volume if I want it, that’s the best of both worlds in my book.
Of all the authors in the world I’m confident that the plot of Misery has the most chance of being re-enacted in the real world with GRRM and a crazed fan.
I got this via the Irish Green Party Twitter feed, which will clue you in to what it’s about: Winter Is Not Coming.
I think GRRM was the only person who thought it would be finished by the end of the year. I don’t mean it in a bad way; pretty much everyone else was already thinking “whenever, and not before the show’s done”. Certainly he was never going to get the last one done before the show ends. He should go easier on himself now that he’s come out and said this.
I am really nor sure what all the hand wringing is about. Sure AGoT 6 will air before TWOW hits the shelves. So what? HBO does not expect AGoT to go beyond season 8, right? Are people expecting GRRM to write “A Dream of Spring” in a year? And that makes the very big assumption that ADoS is the last book.
This is a non-issue. Anyone who can do basic math has known the AGoT will end before ASoIaF is finished. Maybe long before…
Give the man a break, and enjoy both, neither, or one or the other.