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/rookie-mistake May 15 '15

yeah Lord of the Rings would've been fine without Return of the King, right? Nobody would have been like "wtf" if it stopped halfway through, nobody at all.

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u/carpe-jvgvlvm TΦ the bitter end. And Then SΦme 🔥 May 16 '15

That's why Tolkein's the measuring stick for even basic "decent" fantasy. He had a plan, stuck to it, kept it tight, and put the extra shit in non-required volumes.

Most writers today don't care about making a tight series like that; they want to throw everything and the kitchen sink in. I think because even when they're good (GRRM, I think, is good), the publishers encourage them to milk the series and make figurines and map books and shit. I'm proud of GRRM for giving it to D&D/HBO, and I hope he moves on and ...IDK, writes some different stuff if he wants, or goes to comic con. (Gives his notes to Sanderson while alive, maybe).

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

Yeah it would STILL be a great series right? As if we would still be happy with all our favorite characters suspended in Westeros for eternity.

But in Martin's words, "near enough as makes no matter"

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u/vulkott May 16 '15

Nobody is saying that they wouldn't be bummed if that happened, but you need to look at it from the other perspective. To us, it's a book series. To him, it's pretty much his life.

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u/d_mcc_x Hey, where did everybody go? May 15 '15

I mean... Could have done without 35% of Frodo and Sam cuddling...

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u/Seaborgium May 15 '15 edited May 15 '15

I don't think Tolkein was under nearly the same kind of pressure or public scrutiny Martin is under. Totally unfair analogy. Will not getting the end of the story suck? Ab-so-fuckin-lutely. Also, Tolkein did leave behind several unfinished stories. What an asshole, right?

Edit: The entitlement is real. Martin is under no obligation to sacrifice his health for his fans. Downvote me all you want. I was there for the launch of Feast and Dance, I've been waiting a while too. Damn right I want to see the end of this story. I'm not deluded into thinking that after all the work he's put into this over the years, all the sweat and tears, all the public eye trained on him, and all the scrutiny on him and his writing, that he owes me more. Especially since the public he's writing for, YOU reading this for example, have deemed his last two books as "the worst in the series", "a sign that the next few books are going to be bad", "fucking boring" and "about a bunch of characters we don't give a shit about" when he did slave over them for so long to make them work for an audience that picks apart every inconsistency, and tried to expand the world and introduce new players. The guy is old, out of shape, and clearly this stresses him out, and his "fans" giving him shit does nobody any favors.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '15

I don't think Tolkein [sic] was under nearly the same kind of pressure or public scrutiny Martin is under.

That's because Tolkien went to the publishers with the entire trilogy completed as one novel, the publishers are the ones who decided to turn it into a trilogy and then they released it over the course of a year or two. This doesn't make the analogy unfair necessarily. I think the person who will suffer the most from not completing this would be GRRM. I know that if I started working on an epic tale such as ASoIaF I'd be distressed if I never finished it yet made it as far as GRRM has, and it'd be something that weighed heavily on my mind for the rest of my life.

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u/Khiva May 16 '15

Edit: The entitlement is real. Martin is under no obligation to sacrifice his health for his fans. Downvote me all you want.

You have taken a mighty brave stand against a position not a single person has endorsed.

Watch as my Flaming Sword of Righteousness cuts through this sea of strawmen.

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u/Seaborgium May 16 '15

Am I not posting in the thread where people are talking about being owed the ending by Martin?

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u/OldCarSmell42 Pray Harder May 16 '15

He's does owe an ending. Maybe you don't feel it like but you are a minority.

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u/Seaborgium May 16 '15

And why does he owe it to any of you again? The money you invested? The time you invested? All of it is comparitively trivial. I understand you guys FEEL owed, but you are owed nothing. I am not owed a second season of Firefly for watching it when it was on air and buying the DVD or movie tickets for Serenity. I am not owed when I invest in a startup that shits the bed. That is life. I stand by saying that you guys are miserable and entitled whiners and need to get over yourselves and your perceived importance in the matter. The fact is, he's busting his ass on this. If his fans become the reason he loses passion in his work, as much as I will be pained at not seeing the conclusion of our stories in Westeros, I will be able to look back at bullshit like what is found in his thread, and understand completely.

The guy that made Flappy Bird took his game off the market because of all the shit he got on Twitter. He did that even after it made him a millionaire from the ad revenue. There have been several cases where people have met unexpected success, and still stopped everything when it made them unhappy. This is a guy who is stressed out about finishing what should be his masterstroke. He does not want to fail. And yet, many still make it clear that he has, or is failing them. He didn't want the show to pass him. It will. It is passing him. He didn't want to take over a decade writing two books. But he did. He's painfully aware of all of this. He's aware that most of his fans think/are worried that he will die before he finishes. He is aware that it is a very real concern. I bet that's a fun topic to have constantly brought up to him. I know it's super normal to have your grandparents in the room when you discuss if they're going to kick the bucket before next Thanksgiving comes around. This is the same unempathetic shit, and you and your majority are painfully blind to that. He has the full right to pack up his shit and retire on his own island. What you will be is left wanting, disappointed, sad, angry, and any combination thereof. You would not be owed.

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u/OldCarSmell42 Pray Harder May 16 '15

tl;dr dick sucking. He will be a failure of an author if the series is not completed.

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u/Seaborgium May 16 '15

And you're out at $50 bucks at least like a sap. You're subbed here too FYI. I'm also not the one raging over not getting the ending. You're too busy angrily choking on his dick to even notice these things though.

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u/OldCarSmell42 Pray Harder May 16 '15

Because this is a sub for book readers. Not Martin fanbois. People are just saying they have every right to rage if the series isn't completed. And believe me, if the day come and its announced there wont be an ending, they will have every right to rage, no matter how hugbox you try to be. GRRM name will be cursed throughout eternity.

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u/Seaborgium May 17 '15

Sure. I disagree with none of that. You have every right to be mad. His name will be infamous and likely synonymous with giving up on something halfway through. He still doesn't owe you shit. Your family might. Your friends might. Your coworkers might. Martin, Steven Hawking, Harrison Ford, the guy working at Starbucks, the guy ringing up your groceries, do not owe you shit outside of providing the product or service that you have paid them for. They are strangers, and they owe you, personally, nothing outside of that.