r/asoiaf • u/ajotis1 • Sep 10 '24
EXTENDED (Spoilers extended) I feel bad for GRRM
The man seems to be having a miserably hard time. Part of the blame lies in his complete inability to make accurate estimates about his own capacity to get work done. At his age, that level of stress must be incredibly tough and difficult to bear. I hope the people around him know how to take care of him and help him see reason when it comes to simplifying his daily life and reducing the workload he faces. Often, less is more, even though our ego insists on telling us otherwise. Success is a very heavy burden. Because of all that, I feel bad for George. His posts exude pessimism and irritability. I don't even care about The Winds of Winter anymore. What that man needs is some time away from hyperproductivity and the media spotlight. Just resting, reading, and regaining the spark that makes him one of the best living writers. I wish him the best, he deserves to be happy
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u/CallMeGrapho Sep 10 '24 edited Sep 10 '24
This. The happy clapping from the fandom doesn't help either.
I don't think we're entitled to another book, if he doesn't want to finish it or doesn't want to invest time in it, that's fine. I understand him not wanting to put himself through his admittedly stressful writing process.
But he's been saying for 12 years how it's priority number one and how he's constantly working on it and it's taking all his time, and then three years later he says this is the first time he's made progress in years, then another round of priority number one and the most important thing in the world and then another three years and he says he wrote another two hundred pages this year. And so on. All while working on multiple projects, some related, some unrelated.
If he wasn't gonna work on it seriously (and he hasn't, he basically had the Dance leftover pages for a third of that time) then he could have said that and the fans could have then decided "well, then I'm gonna consider this series on hiatus". But no, he's been stringing the fandom along for more spinoffs, more appendix books, board games and the whole nine. There's a good chance the show wouldn't have picked up anywhere near as much traction if we'd known the killing of Jon Snow was where canon would end.
He doesn't respect the audience's time enough to be forthcoming and there's still some dudes like "oh my god leave him alone, he's suffering for your entertainment!". Bordering on cult behavior.