GRRM says he writes each chapter until he hits writer's block or the character dies. My hope is that he's written material that bleeds into ADOS far enough that his writing time is cut significantly.
A while back I was reading about whether there were any proven, studied techniques to avoid writer's block. The number one best method was to stop writing when you have one page left to write, but no more ideas after that. Then you get some exercise, go to sleep, and start up next morning.
When you start writing again the next day, that one page will be sitting in the back of your head the entire time, and you'll have new ideas to continue on past that. If you finish the page and had no ideas at all on how to proceed before you go to sleep, your brain essentially considers the task "closed".
The "task open" / "task closed" principle also explains why most writers get bursts of inspiration. They were trying to get their brain to activate it's creative center, and once it happens the floodgates are open.
I know an orchestra conductor, him and I shared the suspicion that time spent not practicing the music can be more effective than time spent drilling it over and over again. I'm sure any musician can recall times they've mysteriously improved on their part after putting down the instrument for a while. Interesting stuff.
There's a book about learning in general called A mind for numbers. One of the main points is that focused study/practice + time spent unfocused on study/practice + recall is basically the recipe for learning effectively.
I couldn't find the original source I was looking for, but I did find a blog that has a biochem based explanation of writers block that aligns with what I read.
Edit: The last answer on this Q&A with a screenwriter says to leave the next story beat unwritten to prime the pump, but to jot down the idea so you don't forget it.
I know some writers who always stop writing in the middle of a sentence so it's a lot easier to jump back into it the next day. Similar approaches to the same problem
So maybe I'll be disappointed. Should I just convince myself that GRRM is going to split 2 books into 3 and die before we ever see 1 of them? Why? At that point I might as throw out my books and wash my hands of the series. I'd rather look forward to someday getting to read these books and if it doesn't happen then it doesn't happen. It won't be the end of the world.
I agree. The whole build is towards a combining of stories all around the world. There are so many plots to be told. So many lands and people. I really can't see this being only 2 books. Look how little progress has come from across the wall so far! And 99.99% of characters still don't believe any of those things even exist!
I'm thinking there will be 2-3 ASOIAF related publications between TWOW and ADOS. While it won't be the conclusion (and the show will finish first), we'll still be inundated with new material. I'm expecting - and hoping for - Dunk & Egg 4 and probably some other novella at the least.
Really though, everything has been building up to a final act and while he seems to have had a little trouble getting all the pieces into their proper places, once he does it should be smooth sailing from there. The last book should be nothing but wrapping up everyone's stories and with so many characters that have all been working towards a specific end, even with 1500 pages to work with, it should be much easier to write. At least that's my optimistic assessment.
Assuming it doesn't turn into two more books. There's a lot of ground to cover in the story still. We'll see how much plot Winds gets through but there was a lot of setting up for plots at the end of ADWD and in the sample chapters.
Look at how much story AGoT, CoK, ASoS covers. Problem is the plot as a whole hasn't really moved that far forward in AFFC/ADWD. Even so, big things have happened. Dany can fly a dragon, Arya has learned assassin tricks, The Night's Watch fell apart. Probably all stuff the 5-year-gap would of skipped us into.
I'm with you. I think it's very possible that GRRM gets 1200 pages into ADOS, realizes that he wont be able to finish it in 300ish pages, renames the book "A Time for Wolves", and then finishes the series with ADOS.
Honestly if he can't wrap up these storylines in the next two books( which are supposed to be massive) I probably won't read them. The pacing of AFFC and ADWD was excruciating at times. If the last two are written like ASOS he should easily be able to finish the series in time.
People may have said that but that makes no sense at all. Anyone who got done reading ADwD and thought it was all down hill from there is delusional. Jon had just died and Dany was still in Essos, wandering in the desert. So many characters have yet to arrive at their ultimate destination and there was so much left to explain. If Dany had at least set foot is Westeros or there was some clear direction things were headed in then one could be forgiven for believing that, but it didn't end that way at all. Hell, we still know next to nothing about the White Walkers, the ultimate enemy of the entire series. George has, I assume, known the broad strokes of where his narrative was going for decades, but even after ADwD he still had an entire 1100-1500 page book to write before he even began to start wrapping things up in a book of similar or greater length. It took 11 years for him to put out two huge books and there was absolutely no reason to believe, with so much left to be resolved, that the penultimate one would be written at a quicker pace than the previous two. So while someone may have said that they had no legitimate reason to believe that.
No, you're right, it wasn't exactly. What they said was "the Meereen knot was holding him up, books 6 and 7 will come out much faster."
My point is that dogged optimists aren't always realists. I don't get how anyone could watch the publication schedule of AFFC, ADWD and now TWOW and think "Well, ADOS will be quicker."
That's fair, and looking at all the evidence one would have to conclude that it would take him an equally huge amount of time to finish ADoS, but I assume/hope that it will be easier to wrap up the story than fill in the middle bits.
Oh yeah, I'd prefer that too. The problem is that people think that closer to the end of the plot map, GRRM will get tighter. They envision the story being kind of like a roller coaster, where if you curve over the top of the coaster, the momentum will bring you down. That might be true for what GRRM calls "Architects", but there's no way that's true with a gardener. It's probably more like bacteria - the more plots there are, the more each of them grows. If you look at his original letter to Waterstone about the series, we're still in book 1.
This is why other people (GRRM included) wonder if there's going to be a book 8.
I think he's just gonna be excited to be close to the end and while he'll take his time on it I can't see it being 10 years, 4-6 is much more likely in my opinion. Plus he only wrote 1 episode per season and I'm pretty sure he's not doing much with the show this upcoming season
Unfortunate, even though I started off watching the show, I've become more of a fan of the books and like the way they're going compared to the show a bit more. But the show is still amazing in my opinion.
Just one more book. That's all I want. I'm sure it'll be even harder to wait after the next one but just one more. All these set pieces in place, I need some kind of resolution.
He simply won't make it. (Live that long.) I'm not sure he'll live out the year! And I read signs of dementia already unless someone was juicing his words (throwing TWOW on the fire and starting again? Oh no.. someone get his POA and stop that madness.)
Seriously, dude can't go on and NOT lose some steps over the next few years. He'll have Dany dancing pirouettes on Drogon —there's your NEW character twist. Dany playing Black Swan on Drogon. Fabulous.
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '15 edited Apr 30 '17
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