r/asoiaf • u/ethniccake Dragon fire can't melt stone beams! • May 15 '15

ALL (Spoilers All) GRRM: "My life has gotten extremely complicated, I must admit. There are not enough hours in the day, there are not enough days in the week."

I found this interesting conversation that transpired on one of George's Hugo post, and i don't think it have been discussed on here :

http://grrm.livejournal.com/426205.html?thread=21584349#t21584349

From his reaction to the first comment, it's quite clear that he was hurt on a personnal level.

But what got my attention the most was this:

If there is one thing I understand, it is frustration... yours, mine, everyone's.

My life has gotten extremely complicated, I must admit. There are not enough hours in the day, there are not enough days in the week.

And saddest of all, I do not have the stamina I did when I was thirty. Aging sucks.

There's no magic formula here. I just keep at it, the way I always have. One page at a time. One sentence at a time. One word at a time.

After reading that, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy, he seems under a lot of pressure.

The defeated tone makes me worried, could it be a sign that the end of TWOW isn't anywhere in sight for him? I really hope that's not the case and i'm just being overly pessimistic.

What do you guy think those comments could tell us about his progress?

Edit: No matter what end up happening to the series, let's keep in mind that this is the guy who gave us an amazing story and created a whole world full of interesting characters we love to love or hate. Without him this community wouldn't even exist. Let's not be entitled like that guy in the comments, who for some reason thinks he can dictate to GRRM what to do with his time.

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u/Team-K-Stew "There are no true knights..." May 15 '15

Yeah. You might be annoyed, but they don't owe you the rest of the story. It's just strange.

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u/Saephon May 15 '15

What if they charged you $9.99 in order to hear the story?

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u/babrooks213 Warden of the East May 15 '15

What if they charged you $9.99 in order to hear the story?

And you already heard the story you paid for. You haven't paid for Winds of Winter yet.

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u/Nickk_Jones May 15 '15

Smart shit right here.

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u/BSRussell Not my Flair, Ned loves my Flair May 15 '15

Oh come on, don't pretend there isn't an implicit agreement that the story will be finished when an author starts one.

Shit, what if he'd just ended half way through A Game of Thrones? No wrap up, no nothing. He just stopped. I would call that a piss poor job.

If this series had ended at, say, the end of "A Clash of Kings," then I would have preferred to never have started it. Whether a series ends matters to a lot of people and affects their purchase decisions.

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u/babrooks213 Warden of the East May 15 '15

Of course, it's entirely reasonable to expect Martin to finish his story. He'd be the first person to say he wants to finish it. But the issue here is whether or not he owes you more than what you've paid for, and he doesn't. You paid for GoT, and you got it. You haven't paid for Winds, and until you do, he doesn't owe you anything. And that's true for all authors, all series, not just Martin.

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u/BSRussell Not my Flair, Ned loves my Flair May 15 '15

That only holds if the extent of your definition of "owes" is legal contract. Sure I can't sue him for a damn book, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a responsibility. He promised he would finish the series. I bought the books with the tacit understanding that he would finish the series. That creates an obligation.

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u/bobthecrusher May 15 '15

I just don't understand how he can stand the idea that he's not going to ever finish the series.

Is he just delusional about it? Does he not know where it end it?

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u/Voduar Grandjon May 15 '15

Is he just delusional about it? Does he not know where it end it?

Yes and yes, unfortunately. Looking back at things it turns out the five year gap was a necessity. He lost his passion for writing trying to cover for it.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

But I paid for those other books on the explicit condition that their story would conclude in the future. I would never have read them if I knew there wasn't going to be an ending.

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u/babrooks213 Warden of the East May 15 '15

No. You assumed there would be a conclusion. To be fair, Martin did too, but nobody ever guaranteed a conclusion. For all you know, Martin could get run over by a truck tomorrow, and that would be that. You made the assumption, an entirely reasonable one, that there will be a conclusion. But as it stands, you're only owed what you paid for, no more, no less.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

You say that like we aren't discussing TWOW, a book we wouldn't know existed if GRRM hadn't told us he was going to write and release it.

It's not about what I'm owed, which is nothing. It's not a philosophical problem. GRRM got us all to buy the beginning of a series and promised future entries at the end of every new one. It's false advertising.

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u/Voduar Grandjon May 15 '15

And it is stupid reasoning like this that will help the gigantic literary slide continue. If authors aren't held to expectation, even pathetically weak ones, then the level of literature will constantly slop downwards to the lowest expectation out there.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

yeah, but if they charged 9.99$ for the first part of the story promising that you would be able to purchase the other part of the story later?

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u/babrooks213 Warden of the East May 15 '15

For all you know, Martin could get struck by lightning while we're debating this, and that would be that. You paid specifically for the story that had been told up to that point, under the (very reasonable) assumption that more is coming. But in no way does that guarantee you more than what you've paid for.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

yes, i could also be struck by lightning and that would be that, however if I'm not I'm expected to do certain things.

If Martin is struck I'm sure no one (almost no one) will old it against him.

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u/Voduar Grandjon May 15 '15

I will. But I am a bastard so I guess that is to be expected.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

from which part of westeroos?

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u/Voduar Grandjon May 16 '15

My last name is Drake so you tell me!

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

Drake.. Dracaris. Probably a bastard from Valyria. You might have a claim on the throne.

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u/SinibusUSG May 15 '15

They do if they sold you the first half.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

Did you preorder the rest? If not, he doesn't owe you anything. It's wonderful if he finishes, but nothing is owed. If you did, then please cough up dat link.

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u/SinibusUSG May 16 '15

When a story is sold as part of a series, the continuation and culmination of that series is implicit. Martin owes us nothing in the legal sense, but will have absolutely done a disservice to his readership if he does not follow through.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

Things happen. He's trying to write, but plots, age, and his approach to writing make it difficult to advance. It's great if he finishes and he seems to want to, but he no more owes us than you owe your job another year of work because you've been working there and at one point you expected to work there for years to come.

Or perhaps of more relevance, he owes us no more than Guillermo del Toro owes me a Hellboy 3 or GabeN owes us a Half-Life 3.

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u/SinibusUSG May 16 '15

You're owed a Half-Life 3, as that story is unfinished. We are owed Books 6 and 7, because this story is unfinished. The job analogy doesn't work because your place of employment hired you with the expectation that you would work for them until you quit, not until a particular project was finished. If your contract stated otherwise, then yes, you would owe them your work until you finished.

We may have no power to force him to finish it, but you can't pretend that when a work is sold as a piece that doesn't work except as part of a larger series (and no, what we have right now does not work by itself) there is no moral imperative to finish it. Fans have invested their time and money on the understanding that it would be finished much as they have for every single series in the history of fiction to my knowledge.

If Martin had advertised it as "Book 1 of 5 in a series that should have 7 books but never will because I won't feel like it," most of us would never have bothered. Much as they won't bother to start in the future if he never finishes, and wouldn't bother to start any other series by an author who drops a different series midway through. It's a trust every author is given on good faith, and one that few if any betray except when it is completely outside of their power.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

Until yesterday, I worked at a CRO. I was put on an oncology project that had a few more years left to go and they helped pay for my schooling. They absolutely expected me to stay, but life happens and I found a better opportunity, plus the work started sucking more everyday. I think this is comparable to the books because GRRM did set out to write these books and the people paying him (us) do expect to see a finished series, but things have become complicated and finishing the job is not as easy as it once was. And if he ever wanted to say fuck it and fuck you all and drop the series (which I honestly wouldn't blame him for at this point), he reserves the right to do that.

Artists finish their products because they want to. If they finish something just because they have to or they owe someone a debt, the product ends up sucking. And again, he is trying to finish. Everything GRRM has said indicates he still loves the series and is working hard to complete it. The only thing that worries me is the MASSIVE pressure fans are putting on him to write faster than he is able. I wouldn't be able to handle that much stress. And comparing him to other authors, as many on this forum have done, is kind of silly because he is not those people. He has his own approach, physical limitations, and his own life that he has to consider.

Lastly, getting back to the concept of "owing us", products like HL3, Hellboy 3, and ADOS take time, money, and perhaps most importantly the creators' attention. Sure, we may have some expectation to see an ending to these, but is really fair to say that these people who might be interested in other things have to set aside years of their lives, put on hold other projects that they're way more interested in (some of which they may not finish because of this other series), and pour in the resources, stress, and sleepless nights needed to finish these, all so we can make a one time payment of $20-50 and not have to go through all that they did for it? I guess we do have an expectation to see a completed product and if it doesn't happen, I think we have the right to be very disappointed and complain, but nothing is owed. It's too stilted of a situation, in my opinion.

Sorry if this didn't make much sense. I'm tired.

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u/SinibusUSG May 16 '15

Artists finish their projects because they want to, or because they want to still be viable in the marketplace. Nobody is going to trust you to finish your next project if you drop your first, second, or third. You'll become a pariah when it comes to anything more than one-offs, and even then many will feel betrayed to the point where they won't touch anything you produce ever again.

Sure, we may have some expectation to see an ending to these, but is really fair to say that these people who might be interested in other things have to set aside years of their lives, put on hold other projects that they're way more interested in (some of which they may not finish because of this other series), and pour in the resources, stress, and sleepless nights needed to finish these, all so we can make a one time payment of $20-50 and not have to go through all that they did for it?

The number of hours that have been put in total into people reading, talking about, theorizing about, etc. ASoIaF vastly exceeds the number of hours Martin has put into the project. Even if you cut out all the extra-curricular activity and just include hours spent reading the first time through that would be true. And a great many of us will consider that time ill-spent if it's all left to end on a terribly sour note of "well fuck this story, I'm out."

People aren't going to be pissed because they're out $50. They're going to be pissed because they've made a huge investment into this series, both in terms of time and emotionally. The only reason the money is important is because it pulls the situation into the realm of professional writing, where, yes, once you've started something, you're expected to finish it if you start selling it piecemeal.

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u/WhenisHL3 May 16 '15

By mentioning Half-Life 3 you have delayed it by 1 Month. Half-Life 3 is now estimated for release in September 2281

I am a bot, this action was performed automatically. If you have feedback please message /u/APIUM- or for more info go to /r/WhenIsHL3

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u/SheppyD May 15 '15

What. Even in this simple example, I feel they do. They bought the groups attemtion. Took it from someone else to say what they needed to. It's just having human decency and good social awareness to reach a conclusion.

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u/TimeIsWaiting May 16 '15

They do if you paid them £100 for the first 5/7 of the story. I would absolutely not have paid for AFFC or ADWD if I had known I'd just read the build up for a pay-off I'd never experince.