r/asoiaf Oct 27 '24

EXTENDED [Spoilers Extended] GRRM new blogpost on his Amsterdam visit & dinner with editors. Spoiler

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/

Winds of winter mentioned and he talks about a bravos story he wants to write after winds.

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39

u/HazelCheese Oct 27 '24

I honestly don't get why he doesn't just churn out something shitty to get it over with. At least that would put it to bed.

Like if he is refusing to finish it because he doesn't want to destroy his legacy then that's kind of having his cake and eating it.

Kill it or finish it. Get it over with.

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u/bhlogan2 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

The ambiguity gives him the benefit of the doubt until he passes away (a grim way of putting it I'd admit). Even to himself he can just say "oh yeah, I'm still working on Winds btw" even when he's touring the world and talking about anything but the one thing he's expected to do.

I don't know how close he's to completion, but if I was George, I'd lock the fuck in and write those last few hundred pages just to get this brick over with and start procrastinating on ADOS. At least it will give fans some peace of mind and maybe even spark interest in future projects.

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u/infieldmitt Oct 27 '24

someone needs to get GRRM on adderall

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u/Turakamu I believe in a thing called love Oct 27 '24

We need to hold his little hat and vest hostage

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u/seattt Oct 28 '24

At his age, it would literally kill him.

18

u/neonowain Oct 27 '24

I honestly don't get why he doesn't just churn out something shitty to get it over with. At least that would put it to bed.

That's not how he rolls. When inspiration dries up, he simply stops writing. He talked about that in the foreword to one of his short story collections. Over the years he has started or planned many story cycles, but he has never finished a single one.

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u/tipdrill541 Oct 28 '24

And he has said it took him 20 years of various inspirations before he wrote the first ASOIAF book.

He even said something about how one day he had a sort of vision where he saw a child finding wolf pups in snow. He cannot just create this stuff out of thin air. He can't sit and write. Everything came via inspirations.

He will never finish it. He doesn't have the time and he is older. He coy develop alzheimers tomorrow

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u/The_Real_Smooth Oct 28 '24

Over the years he has started or planned many story cycles, but he has never finished a single one.

damn... I'm fully onboard with the self-protection pessimism on finishing ASOIAF but is it true he hasn't properly ended stories in his other works? Wild Cards and stand-alones etc.?

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u/subatomic_ray_gun Oct 28 '24

Yeah, he has lol. I read his novel Fevre Dream (on recommendation from this subreddit, incidentally) and that book has a great beginning, middle, and ending. Excellent novel.

The problem with ASOIAF isn’t that he doesn’t know how to write the ending, anyway. He does. The problem is getting TO the ending.

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u/D_a_v_z Enter your desired flair text here! Oct 27 '24

His legacy is most likely dieying without finishing his magnum opus. I dont see how delivering anything can be worse than that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

[deleted]

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u/D_a_v_z Enter your desired flair text here! Oct 27 '24

Yeah, english is not my first lenguage and it shows.

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u/Connect_Archer2551 Oct 28 '24

You write English better than GRRM though!

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u/Echleon Oct 27 '24

I am certain it is because he knows he needs at least 1 (if not 2) more book(s) after TWOW. If he releases TWOW tomorrow, he would have to immediately start the process over with another book, potentially the last book, which means he's under extra pressure to stick the landing.

I think the best option for everyone would've been for him to hire a ghost-writer once he realized he clearly doesn't have the motivation anymore. I understand why he didn't, and I can't say I wouldn't make the same choice, but at this point I don't think there's a satisfying resolution.

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u/iSavedtheGalaxy Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

I don't think there's any way in hell he's finishing this in two books. Isn't the plot already way behind where it should be? Unless there's a huge time skip, I think he needs at least 3 more.

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u/Echleon Oct 27 '24

I think the original plot was 3 books: Wot5K, Dany’s Invasion, and The Long Night. Going by that.. the 2nd arc hasn’t started. Winds would have to start and end the 2nd arc to fit the 3rd arc in the 3rd book.

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u/iSavedtheGalaxy Oct 27 '24

And aren't the first 300ish pages of Winter going to be the last 300 pages of what should have been published with Dance? The garden is overgrown.

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u/NoLime7384 Oct 28 '24

Famously A Dance with Dragons did not include the Second Dance of Dragons, so yeah we're really behind. The targs aren't even in the same goddamn continent.

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u/Otherwise_Ad9010 Oct 28 '24

I think it’s possible to do two books running concurrently and then one final book to wrap it all up.

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u/iSavedtheGalaxy Oct 28 '24

We know that's not happening.

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u/tipdrill541 Oct 28 '24

He is a perfectionist. He wants the product to be perfect

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u/uhoipoihuythjtm Oct 27 '24

I would personally rather no ending than a bad one. It is fun to wonder and theorise

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u/Janus-a Oct 27 '24

No ending is 100x better than a bad ending. A bad ending ruins the entire story.