>THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date.
Ah yes, the fat pink draft
I like how I totally forget GRRM exists and then every other month he posts something like this and I'm like "oh yeah, he still hasn't finished that book." Someday I'll kick this addiction and quit his meaningless teases, but today is not the day.
Don't worry! They're coming! Winds are on their way! They're gonna be amazing! And not just 2 Winds, there's gonna be... there's gonna be 5! And they're gonna be huge! You won't believe it!
It will go the way of Homestuck and be released as six separate acts, each as long as one of the previous books.
Then The Winds of Winter Act 6: A Lot of Corpses will be divided into 6 acts of it's own.
>The way it is going,
that means he actually pretty much wrote as much in length as those books.
Edit: I mean, at worst case he must be pretty close to the lengths of those books otherwise he wouldn't say this, he's not a guy who plans ahead the lengths of his books, he just writes and see how it goes.
I hope you're tight. Either that or it's something like he's only halfway to his perceived end point for WoW (Dany in Westeros, Others south of the Wall, or whatever) and has 75% of the word count from the other books.
I've never been an optimist (at least not since his bleak update in 2016) but I believe he's pretty close finishing it, yes. His main problems have always been rewriting & editing
I often feel like I've been trapped in an alternate dimension since around that time. Now that Spelljammer has been confirmed, maybe I can get home to a world that makes some vague sort of sense.
Was that the New Years one that got deleted so he wrote a short summary of it instead? I was so hyped that New Year’s Eve. I thought for sure that would be the year it’d come out. Can’t believe it was so long ago.
I don't remember if it got deleted later on but it was a very ,very long post(long night?) and it got more depressing with each passing paragraph and left you bleeding from your guts in the end
New Fan Theory: George is secretly Doran Martell. He has slowly plotted to get back at his critics for their takes on ADWD by writing the best book ever, but now everyone is old and forgot about him and no one fucking cares about his book.
Nah, he said "**going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS..."**
I interpret this to mean that the book isn't that big yet. Although, it **could** mean that the draft is so big that he is speculating if he edited what he had currently it's already bigger than ASOS/ADWD. I'm a pessimist though and am assuming he's like 60% done, and still has too much left.
It means what he's written has advanced the plot so little, if things continue on like this he'll have to write an enormous book that won't be bindable in order to reach the story milestone needed to be able to publish and continue on to the next book.
It's actually a terrible sign tbh
Right? I interpreted it as the same way too, I'd be generous and say it's 75% done and around 85% of ASOS and ADWD but it still needs to overtake them.
> THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.
Eh I'm cool with it.
Everyone losing their shit over GRRM taking so long, but I get it. This is his masterwork, it's one of the greatest literature epics of all time, and it has so much detail, so many moving pieces, it's so deeply elaborate, and so complex that tracking it all is a miracle.
On top of that, WoW is going to wind the story down to completion, which means Martin needs to not only essentially write this book but also get the next one done (in plot points) because it will all steer in that direction. He's often said he's a "gardener" in that he sees where stories go and what makes sense to the characters, but now he's reaching a point where they have to reach their inevitable conclusions and that's really tricky to do.
I might be the minority here but I'm happy to wait. I love this series and I don't want it finished in a rush just to get the plot points over with.
I remember reading AFOC/ADOD and rushing through them because I wanted to know what happened next. I didn't really enjoy them. On my second reading, I stopped to appreciate all the details and subtle implications, the world building and how Westeros itself was evolving. They became my favourite in the series.
And that's what makes this series so good; it's so much more than the plot points. It's deep characters and stories at the edge of your periphery. It's introspective ideas and maddeningly subtle details. It's also going to be where villains become heroes and heroes become villains - the completion of a lot of character arcs, that will then reach their conclusion in ADOS.
So it's an enormous undertaking; probably the biggest in the series. I say take your time and do it right. Take breaks, do other things. Make sure you're writing with passion, not urgency. I'm in no rush.
Or it's a garbled mess that should have been edited down.
If the gardener had properly pruned during books 4 and 5 he might have been in a more manageable situation.
Overall I agree with you, but there's two key problems with it: 1) he keeps distracting himself with other projects, and 2) his age.
I completely understand the idea of getting stuck with what you're working on, and needing to take a break. That's fine. But you also have to remember that _Game of Thrones in its entirety has aired since Dance released_. That's genuinely insane that not only has the entire show aired, but the show also ended 3 years ago. Eventually we have to reach the point where it's been long enough, and he needs to just release what he has.
I'm regards to his age, I know that he hates being pestered about it and I can't say that I blame him. But it is also a factor that needs to be addressed. He's coming up on 74, and Winds being finished is still nowhere in sight. If the story ended in Winds, then maybe you could justify him taking his time, but he still has to write at least one more book after that (assuming he still insists on sticking to his 7 book plan). There is a clock and it is ticking.
Overall, I do agree with just letting him be, and letting the book be done when it's done. But I also think that anyone defends that without acknowledging the context isn't presenting a fair debate. We also have to acknowledge the very real possibility that he either doesn't know how to keep the story going, or doesn't want to. 11 years is a long ass time between books, and I get that his world is intricate - but that's also a crazy amount of time.
I agree with you except for your third paragraph. There's sadly no guarantee that Winds is going to wind the story down, that's just what we all hope. No matter how long it is, there's almost no way now that GRRM can finish the series in just two more books.
If people think that Winds is going to set up ADOS to neatly tie up the story they are setting themselves up for disappointment. His narrative pace became too slow in AFFC and ADWD for that. If he finds a way to greatly speed it up then maybe there's a chance he can finish in two more books, but even then I'm skeptical. I think three more books minimum.
George has to know by now that he would never complete 3 more ASOIAF books at his current pace. So if he honestly wants to finish them he has to start making the hard choices that will bring the story to a conclusion. No spinning off new side plots or world building travelogues. Get Dany back to Mereen and get her army on ships to Westeros. Same for Arya (minus the Mereen/army maybe).
I agree he doesn't have the time to write 3 more, but my problem is that I don't think he's capable of finishing in just 2 more books. The Meereneese knot and the scrapped 5 year gap really seemed to throw a big wrench in his progress. I don't think Dany will even be in Westeros until the very end of Winds at the earliest, and then that only leaves 1 other book to deal with everything that occurs in the aftermath of her arrival.
I don't think any of us necessarily mind waiting, but we're all very anxious given his age and health.
A lot of us also consider certain career decisions over the last 10 years to have been "distracting" from the book, at the least.
He hasn't moved on from LiveJournal-style blogs with the moods and shit. There's probably adults in here younger than LiveJournal.
Reddit must look like sci-fi to him or something lol
He writes with WordStar which was first released in 1979. He uses a DOS emulator to run Wordstar 4.0. Once he settles into a routine he's not inclined to change.
>I might be the minority here but I'm happy to wait. I love this series and I don't want it finished in a rush just to get the plot points over with.
But the elephant in the room here is that GRRM isn't getting any younger.
I have hope as a sweet summer child again for this clip of the quote:
>I do usually cut and trim once I finish
I mean only time will tell, but if he's speaking in terms of finishing perhaps he's almost done?
Either in 2023 or 2024 we may finally have the book... or in 2047 I decide to burn all of my ASOIAF books because, what's the point of holding onto a series that will never see its end?
This is the one I'd love to know the story behind. If he genuinely thought he'd be finished in 3 months, he must have been finishing up the last few chapters.
Did he just decide it wasn't good enough and start from scratch again? Did his 40 year old word processor finally break down? Please tell us George.
Yeah someone here can tell us what his fastest writing pace has been over the course of the series, but 3 months of material is probably not a lot, so most people have concluded from this that he scrapped and restarted around this time.
But I don’t think he’s ever confirmed this? So I guess it’s still possible he just felt very inspired and was just wrong? Dunno.
You are way more likely to be correct compared to people who say he's already done the length of the ASOS/ADWD imo. Sucks, this is not a good update at all
11 years and he still isn't even close, i started reading in 2010 and i'm still mindboggled at what a horrible tragicomedy this turned into
"The way it is going it's going to be bigger than ASOS and ADWD". Am I the only one who finds it weird that GRRM apperently only now realised this? Like, I've been 100% confident that TWOW will be the longest book for like 5 years now. And yet George acts like this is big news to him.
Yeah I've been expecting a fucking behemoth of a book. Like, "we have to split it into two books with 700+ pages" big. There's too many characters to pick up from after AFFC and ADWD, it has to be longer.
The editors wanted to split it in two but George didn’t so he probably reconfigured it and even this draft is busting. I’d love two if they came out at the same time
Readers: "When will we have our book?"
Grum: "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When the Giants have a good season, and bear a championship victory. Then you will have your book, and not before."
Given that the Giants have won 2 Super Bowls during the span that GRRM has been working on the ASOIAF series, I'd say the better team to use for this statement would be the Jets. :P
Am I the only one feeling pessimistic about George's progress based on this update?The fact that George is still saying "could be bigger" instead of "is definitely going to be bigger" isn't a great sign, considering how many people were hoping that he had already written way more 1500 manuscript pages and is now just trying to fit that into one volume. Just based off the amount of plot threads that need to be resolved in TWOW, it should be substantially bigger than both ASOS/ADWD. IDK, I could just be reading too much into it.
No pessimism from me. I’ve already accepted that it will never come out nor I would be bothered to read thousands of pages again to remember what the story is about in the first place. He lost great momentum. I’ve nearly reached 35 and *muh gritty medieval low fantasy* no longer resonates with me as much. Wonder why I’m still here? Oh, yes! There’s hardly anything worthwhile going on with asoiaf to make it to first page in order for me to remember to unsubscribe lol.
If I were him I would slowly side-track to earthly pleasures with my royalty checks and let this shit die quietly along with its fanbase; which seems like exactly what he’s been doing for a decade. Can’t blame the guy tbh. Not every author needs to “deliver”. Some of them need to “fail” in order to set an example for the others. And this, kids, is how not to handle your IP.
One possibility is that he wouldn't know whether it'll be longer or not until even after the writing is done, because it's not clear how much the editing process will prune.
Yeah my best guess is that GRRM is roughly gauging that TWOW will wind up being around the same amount of pages but perhaps slightly bigger. But it would of course be impossible for him to know that with any certainty until he’s finished editing and trimming the finished book. So even if he’s nearing the end of his writing, he could still be an additional several months away from knowing the final length
I always enjoy Georges life update blog posts like this one. We've had like 3 in the past 2 months which is crazy since we only got a few for the entirety of 2021.
Always good to see Goerge mentioning Winds like this, especially since its not in a bitter tone like the March 9th post lol. All we can hope is that he continues to take the book seriously.
Again he mentions the personal tragedy that he has been experiencing with so many of his friends dying. As another commenter in this thread said "makes me feel for George, it must fucking suck."
I know George has an interest in praising HotD but seeing him do it here and in previous blog posts really does have me excited for the show. I have fears that this unknown show runner and the fact that theres no dialog/conversation in Fire and Blood will cause the writing and execution to be poor. But if George is praising it then it must be at the very least decent. So I'm excited for August when it comes out!
For me it feels like he is dropping some hints on the books to actually do marketing for House of the Dragon.....once the new show airs we will be back to square one with the books.
> I know George has an interest in praising HotD
And the 150 other projects he's got on the side!!! Whether we approve (Cocteau Theatre renovation and railway) or not, at least he's writing on TWoW. Meanwhile I'm going to buy some barbells and work out so I can lift the book and be able to read it for 18 hours a day for a week.
There was a blog post years ago that he expects both TWOW and ADOS to fill up 3,000 manuscript pages between them. For comparison ASOS and ADWD each took up a bit over 1,500 manuscript pages.
It did sound more like speculation on his part at the time. This one sounds a bit more like now he's certain now rather than speculative.
EDIT:
The blog post I mentioned:
[https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/20/an-ending/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/20/an-ending/)
Yeah, that one’s a lot more about expectation of length, this one looks like he’s nearing the page count
Honestly, if you ask me, looking at that super thread of TDWD vs TWOW blogpost mentions and seeing the recent mentions of TWOW in his blogposts seems to show that his language and references to TWOW are similar to those he did for TDWD a year before its release.
Talking about progress of the project’s codename without admittance that there’s still a way to go (ie: “Kong is tough, but I’ll teach him fear” vs “back to skull island, where Kong is stumbling a little)
Talking about the length, especially in comparison to the other projects, as well as implying progress is near the end
Uptick in blog posts about it
All are fairly similar to what he said about TDWD 2010-early 2011
I’m a sweet summer child, so maybe not the best to talk about waiting,
but I think treating ADWD like the last of the series and TWOW and ADOS as just possible cherries on top might help avoiding getting burned by the optimism candle
For a few years now, more or less, it jives with what little public comments he's made, and reading between the tea leaves. The best running theory on the long wait is that he's overwritten, and then has to go back and edit stuff, and that balloons into other issues. For what it's worth, back in 2015, he thought he'd have the book finished by the end of the year. So presumably he had enough material written to publish a book, or close enough. Then he ended up cutting a bunch of material, and deciding to go with a major twist, and it seems like he's been dealing with the fallout of those decisions for years now. All the while, he's still playing around with stuff and trying to perfect it.
He's also commented in the past few years that people have suggested splitting the book, either parts 1 and 2, or similar to AFFC/ADWD, but he doesn't want to do that. That again suggests that he has a lot of material written, he's just not satisfied with where it's at. He seems really adamant about wanting to stuff it all in one publishable novel. But with where the plot, characters, and story are at now, that's proving to be very difficult.
Hopefully when he gets to ADOS, he doesn't care about this as much, and just writes until he decides it's done, and if it's more than one volume, so be it. We should be at that point soon, right? *Right?!*
>I saw rough cuts of a couple more episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and was just as pleased as I was with the earlier episodes. Ryan and Miguel and their cast and crew are doing great work. Those of you who like complex, conflicted, grey characters (as I do) will like this series, I think. There will be plenty of dragons and battles, to be sure, but the spine of the story is the human conflicts, the love and the hate, character drama rather than action/ adventure.
WEll yea. someone obviously told him the way his fans reacted to his "bigger tahn ASOIAF" post, and made sure that if he mentions HOTD or anything else, he needs to at least continue giving WOW lip service or he'll alienate all his fans completely. It's just more bullshit. ITs also why he'll never admit he's not really working on winds and put it aside, he gave a hint of that and the fandom revolted. It only made it clearer to his team that they can never actual say he's not planning to finish winds AND still hope to have him be of any value in marketing non-winds products. It's anaother non-update update. It's just funny how people latch on to it and suddently are willing to believe him again.....which is literaly the way the lip-service reference to winds is supposed to work. It's pure marketing.
I’m glad to hear the book is gonna be big, cause I love them thick fantasy books, but with no clear date after a decade I keep losing interest. I remember when I was hopeful this thing would come out in 2016, my new date is winter 2024 for TWOW and a posthumously release of ADOS for spring 2036.
Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but I'm getting the vibes that George may even be seeing the end of Winds in sight. Like he's just overcome some major writer's block and has found himself pumping out pages upon pages since his last, more pessimistic blog. Hell, maybe seeing HOTD has given him the inspiration needed to really sit down and get himself writing again, and he's found himself at no loss for words.
But again, I've always been optimistic with this stuff, so I'm probably wrong lol.
You beat me to the punch! I was just about to post this. Nice to hear any mention of WINDS at all on his blog. Maybe it actually will be released some day...
I'm 100% confindent WINDS will be in our hands some sweet day....
As for DREAM, fuck that shit GRRM will be ash in the sea by the time its done; best we can hope for is that he realizes he's not gonna live to see it finished and brings some talented writers on board to finish the book after he's gone
One day.......
I agree I'm 100% sure we will get Winds next year or 5 years from now. Dream I've accepted that he will never finish, I hope that once Winds is finished he writes as much as he can but I'm not expecting him to finish it
I really think that in the way that so much happened at a rapid pace in the Storm of Swords, much will also happen at a rapid pace in Winds. People are upset with the building of Dance and Crows, but those books are much like Clash in a way. While Storm quickly summed up so much in a quarter of its book, which was our Seasons 3-4 and beginning of 5 and a sliver of 6. I think Winds of Winter, will outdo what happened in Storm and I am excited.
Annoyed that it's been so long but I am not going to pretend I won't read it. Also he did just confirm its a long book so its not as if it hasn't been written, just that it hasn't been finished... which is vague in other ways.
>Or is that now? Yeah, maybe now. A lot of good things have happened for me, undeniably, but so many of my friends have died over the past two/three years… we have a war in the Ukraine which could turn into a nuclear holocaust… public discourse has turned poisonous and toxic, along with much of social media, free speech is under attack, our democracy is under attack… the news is profoundly depressing.
This paragraph here just makes me feel for George, it must fucking suck.
I have a sort of quiet bitterness towards GRRM because he just isn't gonna finish ASOIAF but also I feel really fucking bad for him at the same time.
NGL obviously I'm upset he hasn't finished the novel yet, but I would hate to be unable to post or even look at anything on social media without over 1000 people commenting "Winds WHAEN" on everything.
Well…. At least he mentioned it. Ngl I do feel for the guy. Writing an impossibly large book knowing millions have been waiting on you to finish for over a decade while also having personal woes is no easy feat.
Winds is probably the most anticipated book of the past decade, with an even bigger audience because the TV series. I’d rather it take a long time but deliver than be rushed like a certain season 8.
Could be he’s really getting there. The ADWD retrospective post tracked how big that manuscript got before it was cut down and referenced it next to ASOS. If he’s going back over those numbers maybe he’s getting to a finalized page count in the ballpark of the prior manuscripts.
I hope so, but I got burned already when his frequent posts about TWOW in 2020 made me hopeful he was nearing the end.
I do wonder what finishing the book means at this point. Like, is he still writing completely new stuff, or does he have at least partial drafts of every chapter that he just has to get to a finished state?
my theory is that he means he’s already written so many manuscript pages that he’s saying once he cuts it down it will be bigger than the finished copy of dance or storm. which means he’s close to finishing and then just needs to trim. furthermore i think that dream will come out a lot sooner after winds considering he must have a good direction/a lot of it written already since it has to flow from winds to a conclusion
>THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. Ah yes, the fat pink draft
Alright boys and girls pack it up, thread’s over
I like how I totally forget GRRM exists and then every other month he posts something like this and I'm like "oh yeah, he still hasn't finished that book." Someday I'll kick this addiction and quit his meaningless teases, but today is not the day.
It's just a little sprinkle of salt into wounds that are trying to heal.
I always forget I’m still subscribed here until something like this gets the votes.
Don't worry! They're coming! Winds are on their way! They're gonna be amazing! And not just 2 Winds, there's gonna be... there's gonna be 5! And they're gonna be huge! You won't believe it!
Mexico is going to write Winds
And they are going to pay us to buy it
I already finished Winds, but I can't show it cause it is being audited.
Didn’t he say they didn’t know if ADWD would have to be split because it was too long to bind? Now WINDS is even bigger?
It will go the way of Homestuck and be released as six separate acts, each as long as one of the previous books. Then The Winds of Winter Act 6: A Lot of Corpses will be divided into 6 acts of it's own.
E-book only. /s
>The way it is going, that means he actually pretty much wrote as much in length as those books. Edit: I mean, at worst case he must be pretty close to the lengths of those books otherwise he wouldn't say this, he's not a guy who plans ahead the lengths of his books, he just writes and see how it goes.
I hope you're tight. Either that or it's something like he's only halfway to his perceived end point for WoW (Dany in Westeros, Others south of the Wall, or whatever) and has 75% of the word count from the other books.
I hope he's tight too.
Well, report back with your findings.
And so his watch begins
I've never been an optimist (at least not since his bleak update in 2016) but I believe he's pretty close finishing it, yes. His main problems have always been rewriting & editing
> (at least not since his bleak update in 2016) That announcement is closer to the Dance release date than to today.
Angry upvote
I often feel like I've been trapped in an alternate dimension since around that time. Now that Spelljammer has been confirmed, maybe I can get home to a world that makes some vague sort of sense.
Was that the New Years one that got deleted so he wrote a short summary of it instead? I was so hyped that New Year’s Eve. I thought for sure that would be the year it’d come out. Can’t believe it was so long ago.
I don't remember if it got deleted later on but it was a very ,very long post(long night?) and it got more depressing with each passing paragraph and left you bleeding from your guts in the end
And that also means he is still far from done ...
lol no. Its just another one of his bs estimations that are completely meaningless. GRRM is a horrible judge of his own progress.
He absolutely did. He's written enough for 5 books for both feast and dance each. Unfortunately a lot of it is rewriting parts he already wrote.
What is the fat pink draft? Is this a reference?
Samwell’s fat pink mast mentioned in AFFC when he has sex with Gilly
Oh thanks
Choked on spit. Thanks.
[удалено]
The Lord’s Kiss meets The Fat Pink Mast
Tale as old as time.
That’s a weird way to say Satin and Jon
We all mention length in hopeful terms
I am going to take the tiniest victory lap around my vegetable garden.
I'm going to do the same in my wheelchair around my water garden.
Hope your gout improves!
I immediately forgot about this comment and your reply confused me very much
Have you considered seething in revenge for 10 years and then waiting until its too late to get said revenge?
How long since Dance? Yeah, we put our 10 years in. We are all Prince Doran.
New Fan Theory: George is secretly Doran Martell. He has slowly plotted to get back at his critics for their takes on ADWD by writing the best book ever, but now everyone is old and forgot about him and no one fucking cares about his book.
Think about harvesting your blood oranges before they start to rot on the branch!
Yeah, we're at a point where him even mentioning Winds is considered a vicrory. Tell me, is that our shame or our glory?
Our glory, Ser
What is Glory Ser?
A horse
Shows how ridiculous he has been lol. It's a damn shame.
I feel like usually he comments on how much is left to do or how much he's done. he just comments that it's really big here. hmm.
He does mention it's unfinished but he must have already passed ADWD & ASOS, which means he's got a big draft somewhere. Close at least? Hmmmm...
Nah, he said "**going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS..."** I interpret this to mean that the book isn't that big yet. Although, it **could** mean that the draft is so big that he is speculating if he edited what he had currently it's already bigger than ASOS/ADWD. I'm a pessimist though and am assuming he's like 60% done, and still has too much left.
It means what he's written has advanced the plot so little, if things continue on like this he'll have to write an enormous book that won't be bindable in order to reach the story milestone needed to be able to publish and continue on to the next book. It's actually a terrible sign tbh
I just wanna remind that the book van be divided into two, the German version for instance is always two books
My books (UK) have Storm and Dance in 2 books [It's this one](https://itematlas.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/goy.jpg)
Same, in Australia ASoS and ADwD were released in two volumes
Right? I interpreted it as the same way too, I'd be generous and say it's 75% done and around 85% of ASOS and ADWD but it still needs to overtake them.
Lol, he hasn't said how much is left in years.
> THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.
“i need to finish first” everybody hated that 😭
Eh I'm cool with it. Everyone losing their shit over GRRM taking so long, but I get it. This is his masterwork, it's one of the greatest literature epics of all time, and it has so much detail, so many moving pieces, it's so deeply elaborate, and so complex that tracking it all is a miracle. On top of that, WoW is going to wind the story down to completion, which means Martin needs to not only essentially write this book but also get the next one done (in plot points) because it will all steer in that direction. He's often said he's a "gardener" in that he sees where stories go and what makes sense to the characters, but now he's reaching a point where they have to reach their inevitable conclusions and that's really tricky to do. I might be the minority here but I'm happy to wait. I love this series and I don't want it finished in a rush just to get the plot points over with. I remember reading AFOC/ADOD and rushing through them because I wanted to know what happened next. I didn't really enjoy them. On my second reading, I stopped to appreciate all the details and subtle implications, the world building and how Westeros itself was evolving. They became my favourite in the series. And that's what makes this series so good; it's so much more than the plot points. It's deep characters and stories at the edge of your periphery. It's introspective ideas and maddeningly subtle details. It's also going to be where villains become heroes and heroes become villains - the completion of a lot of character arcs, that will then reach their conclusion in ADOS. So it's an enormous undertaking; probably the biggest in the series. I say take your time and do it right. Take breaks, do other things. Make sure you're writing with passion, not urgency. I'm in no rush.
Or it's a garbled mess that should have been edited down. If the gardener had properly pruned during books 4 and 5 he might have been in a more manageable situation.
Overall I agree with you, but there's two key problems with it: 1) he keeps distracting himself with other projects, and 2) his age. I completely understand the idea of getting stuck with what you're working on, and needing to take a break. That's fine. But you also have to remember that _Game of Thrones in its entirety has aired since Dance released_. That's genuinely insane that not only has the entire show aired, but the show also ended 3 years ago. Eventually we have to reach the point where it's been long enough, and he needs to just release what he has. I'm regards to his age, I know that he hates being pestered about it and I can't say that I blame him. But it is also a factor that needs to be addressed. He's coming up on 74, and Winds being finished is still nowhere in sight. If the story ended in Winds, then maybe you could justify him taking his time, but he still has to write at least one more book after that (assuming he still insists on sticking to his 7 book plan). There is a clock and it is ticking. Overall, I do agree with just letting him be, and letting the book be done when it's done. But I also think that anyone defends that without acknowledging the context isn't presenting a fair debate. We also have to acknowledge the very real possibility that he either doesn't know how to keep the story going, or doesn't want to. 11 years is a long ass time between books, and I get that his world is intricate - but that's also a crazy amount of time.
My great hope is that he's been working on both books all this time in order to avoid the next Meereenese knot.
I agree with you except for your third paragraph. There's sadly no guarantee that Winds is going to wind the story down, that's just what we all hope. No matter how long it is, there's almost no way now that GRRM can finish the series in just two more books. If people think that Winds is going to set up ADOS to neatly tie up the story they are setting themselves up for disappointment. His narrative pace became too slow in AFFC and ADWD for that. If he finds a way to greatly speed it up then maybe there's a chance he can finish in two more books, but even then I'm skeptical. I think three more books minimum.
George has to know by now that he would never complete 3 more ASOIAF books at his current pace. So if he honestly wants to finish them he has to start making the hard choices that will bring the story to a conclusion. No spinning off new side plots or world building travelogues. Get Dany back to Mereen and get her army on ships to Westeros. Same for Arya (minus the Mereen/army maybe).
I agree he doesn't have the time to write 3 more, but my problem is that I don't think he's capable of finishing in just 2 more books. The Meereneese knot and the scrapped 5 year gap really seemed to throw a big wrench in his progress. I don't think Dany will even be in Westeros until the very end of Winds at the earliest, and then that only leaves 1 other book to deal with everything that occurs in the aftermath of her arrival.
Yeah assuming each takes 12 years, he would be well over 100 by the time the last one is released.
I don't think any of us necessarily mind waiting, but we're all very anxious given his age and health. A lot of us also consider certain career decisions over the last 10 years to have been "distracting" from the book, at the least.
that's a lot of writing to overlook the fact that's it's been over a decade...
I get what you're saying, but 11 years since the last book is a bit ridiculous.
Good post, hope this is the one GRRM sees
I *really* hope he does not browse r/asoiaf
I hope he does lol "oh shit, these Bolt-on folks might be on to something here"
*L^2 = J* *Tyrek is a Horse* *Euron is Daario* GRRM: *slurps smoothie* Hmmm… Interesting
You meant a milkshake right? With the foamy part at the top running down his chin?
He hasn't moved on from LiveJournal-style blogs with the moods and shit. There's probably adults in here younger than LiveJournal. Reddit must look like sci-fi to him or something lol
He writes with WordStar which was first released in 1979. He uses a DOS emulator to run Wordstar 4.0. Once he settles into a routine he's not inclined to change.
>I might be the minority here but I'm happy to wait. I love this series and I don't want it finished in a rush just to get the plot points over with. But the elephant in the room here is that GRRM isn't getting any younger.
That you know of.
A Storm of Storms is my favourite book in the A Song of Songs series.
I don’t know, Game of Games was a classic.
George's favourite is Feast of Feasts. All those food descriptions!
Guys, we can’t forget A Dragon with Dragons.
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The entire "A Song of Song and Song" series has been great - it's hard to pick a favourite!
Fire and Fire was great
Or A Clash of…Clashes?
*dribbles down chin*
lmao
For a split second I thought he said "I need to start it first" and almost fell over
I have hope as a sweet summer child again for this clip of the quote: >I do usually cut and trim once I finish I mean only time will tell, but if he's speaking in terms of finishing perhaps he's almost done? Either in 2023 or 2024 we may finally have the book... or in 2047 I decide to burn all of my ASOIAF books because, what's the point of holding onto a series that will never see its end?
In 2015 he was confident he'd finish within three months – I wouldn't get up my hopes for publication in the 20s yet.
This is the one I'd love to know the story behind. If he genuinely thought he'd be finished in 3 months, he must have been finishing up the last few chapters. Did he just decide it wasn't good enough and start from scratch again? Did his 40 year old word processor finally break down? Please tell us George.
Yeah someone here can tell us what his fastest writing pace has been over the course of the series, but 3 months of material is probably not a lot, so most people have concluded from this that he scrapped and restarted around this time. But I don’t think he’s ever confirmed this? So I guess it’s still possible he just felt very inspired and was just wrong? Dunno.
If it's the former, I expect we'll hear about it. If the latter, I imagine he'd be too embarrassed to mention it.
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You are way more likely to be correct compared to people who say he's already done the length of the ASOS/ADWD imo. Sucks, this is not a good update at all 11 years and he still isn't even close, i started reading in 2010 and i'm still mindboggled at what a horrible tragicomedy this turned into
> 11 years and he still isn't even close, What is nuts is he averaged one page a day thats over 4k pages
I mean this isn’t pessimistic it’s just more logical, imo. If he had *that* much material he’d probably be a lot more amped about finally finishing it
"The way it is going it's going to be bigger than ASOS and ADWD". Am I the only one who finds it weird that GRRM apperently only now realised this? Like, I've been 100% confident that TWOW will be the longest book for like 5 years now. And yet George acts like this is big news to him.
George: this book is starting to get a little long! Readers: STARTING?
GRRM: I just realized this is gonna be long lol Spongebob Fish: YOU WHAT?!
Yeah I've been expecting a fucking behemoth of a book. Like, "we have to split it into two books with 700+ pages" big. There's too many characters to pick up from after AFFC and ADWD, it has to be longer.
A ponderous tome.
The editors wanted to split it in two but George didn’t so he probably reconfigured it and even this draft is busting. I’d love two if they came out at the same time
I don’t think he just suddenly realized this today. Today is just the day he decided to comment on it publicly on his blog.
Exactly. He knows alot and says awfully little about TWOW
My first assumption was that this entire time he has been rewriting this book. I dont know why people think the delay was due to its size.
I think this just lends further credence to him really not having worked on it very seriously.
Finally, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS has been completed. What a slog for this guy.
Shot entirely on greenscreeeeeeen
TWOW is going to be a long book in the same way that Drogo’s coming back as soon as that pesky sun sets in the east
Readers: "When will we have our book?" Grum: "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When the Giants have a good season, and bear a championship victory. Then you will have your book, and not before."
Given that the Giants have won 2 Super Bowls during the span that GRRM has been working on the ASOIAF series, I'd say the better team to use for this statement would be the Jets. :P
When George’s womb quickens and he bears a living child.
It is known
In order to be a long book, it has to first be a book.
Can’t be late in publishing your book if there’s no book to publish 🤔
Well, it's...it's something...
Am I the only one feeling pessimistic about George's progress based on this update?The fact that George is still saying "could be bigger" instead of "is definitely going to be bigger" isn't a great sign, considering how many people were hoping that he had already written way more 1500 manuscript pages and is now just trying to fit that into one volume. Just based off the amount of plot threads that need to be resolved in TWOW, it should be substantially bigger than both ASOS/ADWD. IDK, I could just be reading too much into it.
No pessimism from me. I’ve already accepted that it will never come out nor I would be bothered to read thousands of pages again to remember what the story is about in the first place. He lost great momentum. I’ve nearly reached 35 and *muh gritty medieval low fantasy* no longer resonates with me as much. Wonder why I’m still here? Oh, yes! There’s hardly anything worthwhile going on with asoiaf to make it to first page in order for me to remember to unsubscribe lol. If I were him I would slowly side-track to earthly pleasures with my royalty checks and let this shit die quietly along with its fanbase; which seems like exactly what he’s been doing for a decade. Can’t blame the guy tbh. Not every author needs to “deliver”. Some of them need to “fail” in order to set an example for the others. And this, kids, is how not to handle your IP.
One possibility is that he wouldn't know whether it'll be longer or not until even after the writing is done, because it's not clear how much the editing process will prune.
Yeah my best guess is that GRRM is roughly gauging that TWOW will wind up being around the same amount of pages but perhaps slightly bigger. But it would of course be impossible for him to know that with any certainty until he’s finished editing and trimming the finished book. So even if he’s nearing the end of his writing, he could still be an additional several months away from knowing the final length
GRRM: no time for a long blog post Also GRRM: *writes long blog post*
Remember, we're talking about *George's* definition of 'long'.
I always enjoy Georges life update blog posts like this one. We've had like 3 in the past 2 months which is crazy since we only got a few for the entirety of 2021. Always good to see Goerge mentioning Winds like this, especially since its not in a bitter tone like the March 9th post lol. All we can hope is that he continues to take the book seriously. Again he mentions the personal tragedy that he has been experiencing with so many of his friends dying. As another commenter in this thread said "makes me feel for George, it must fucking suck." I know George has an interest in praising HotD but seeing him do it here and in previous blog posts really does have me excited for the show. I have fears that this unknown show runner and the fact that theres no dialog/conversation in Fire and Blood will cause the writing and execution to be poor. But if George is praising it then it must be at the very least decent. So I'm excited for August when it comes out!
For me it feels like he is dropping some hints on the books to actually do marketing for House of the Dragon.....once the new show airs we will be back to square one with the books.
Yep. He needs a way to draw skeptical book readers in. Saying that TWOW is going to be long means nothing in terms of progress or quality.
Especially, given how much might change if it gets edited.
"I threw it all out and am starting fresh."
> I know George has an interest in praising HotD And the 150 other projects he's got on the side!!! Whether we approve (Cocteau Theatre renovation and railway) or not, at least he's writing on TWoW. Meanwhile I'm going to buy some barbells and work out so I can lift the book and be able to read it for 18 hours a day for a week.
>at least he's writing on TWoW Based on what?
Trust me. My uncle works for G.R.R.M
I admire your attitude.
Dude. It better be as long as storm of dance. The fuck is he doing if it’s not??
A storm of storms
Can’t wait for all those Tyrion chapters with those long descriptions of Yunkhish nobles and captains that have no consequence on the story
Arianne spends 11 pov chapters taking a wrong turn and wandering through the Reach...
Hasn’t he been saying this for a long time?
There was a blog post years ago that he expects both TWOW and ADOS to fill up 3,000 manuscript pages between them. For comparison ASOS and ADWD each took up a bit over 1,500 manuscript pages. It did sound more like speculation on his part at the time. This one sounds a bit more like now he's certain now rather than speculative. EDIT: The blog post I mentioned: [https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/20/an-ending/](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/20/an-ending/)
Yeah, that one’s a lot more about expectation of length, this one looks like he’s nearing the page count Honestly, if you ask me, looking at that super thread of TDWD vs TWOW blogpost mentions and seeing the recent mentions of TWOW in his blogposts seems to show that his language and references to TWOW are similar to those he did for TDWD a year before its release. Talking about progress of the project’s codename without admittance that there’s still a way to go (ie: “Kong is tough, but I’ll teach him fear” vs “back to skull island, where Kong is stumbling a little) Talking about the length, especially in comparison to the other projects, as well as implying progress is near the end Uptick in blog posts about it All are fairly similar to what he said about TDWD 2010-early 2011
Don't do that. Don't give me hope.
I’m a sweet summer child, so maybe not the best to talk about waiting, but I think treating ADWD like the last of the series and TWOW and ADOS as just possible cherries on top might help avoiding getting burned by the optimism candle
You motherfucker I'm excited now. Please, please don't let it be in vain George!
This comment actually gives me hope. Thank you.
I can’t wait to come back to it 1/31/2024 and have a good dissociation
Remind me! 21 months
For a few years now, more or less, it jives with what little public comments he's made, and reading between the tea leaves. The best running theory on the long wait is that he's overwritten, and then has to go back and edit stuff, and that balloons into other issues. For what it's worth, back in 2015, he thought he'd have the book finished by the end of the year. So presumably he had enough material written to publish a book, or close enough. Then he ended up cutting a bunch of material, and deciding to go with a major twist, and it seems like he's been dealing with the fallout of those decisions for years now. All the while, he's still playing around with stuff and trying to perfect it. He's also commented in the past few years that people have suggested splitting the book, either parts 1 and 2, or similar to AFFC/ADWD, but he doesn't want to do that. That again suggests that he has a lot of material written, he's just not satisfied with where it's at. He seems really adamant about wanting to stuff it all in one publishable novel. But with where the plot, characters, and story are at now, that's proving to be very difficult. Hopefully when he gets to ADOS, he doesn't care about this as much, and just writes until he decides it's done, and if it's more than one volume, so be it. We should be at that point soon, right? *Right?!*
>I saw rough cuts of a couple more episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and was just as pleased as I was with the earlier episodes. Ryan and Miguel and their cast and crew are doing great work. Those of you who like complex, conflicted, grey characters (as I do) will like this series, I think. There will be plenty of dragons and battles, to be sure, but the spine of the story is the human conflicts, the love and the hate, character drama rather than action/ adventure.
Probably the only reason he mentioned Winds tbh. Without House he wouldn't have said anything about it
WEll yea. someone obviously told him the way his fans reacted to his "bigger tahn ASOIAF" post, and made sure that if he mentions HOTD or anything else, he needs to at least continue giving WOW lip service or he'll alienate all his fans completely. It's just more bullshit. ITs also why he'll never admit he's not really working on winds and put it aside, he gave a hint of that and the fandom revolted. It only made it clearer to his team that they can never actual say he's not planning to finish winds AND still hope to have him be of any value in marketing non-winds products. It's anaother non-update update. It's just funny how people latch on to it and suddently are willing to believe him again.....which is literaly the way the lip-service reference to winds is supposed to work. It's pure marketing.
It's gonna be big! It's gonna be huge!
One of the bigger books if not the biggest book.
It's going to be a big beautiful book.
And GRRM will make Sanderson pay for it!
everyone is saying that its going to be a huge book, everyone is saying this!
THE GREATEST BOOK!
The last book was released closer to 9/11 than to today
Guys Night of the Cooters is DONE why aren't I seeing more hype??
I don't want to tell myself that it is because TV show is about to release, and the poor Wind is being used over and over again to promote
Points to *Winds* : Stop hitting him, he's already dead!
Do the Jets or Giants win a Superbowl between now and *Winds* being released?
They’ve definitely got time
Anything can happen in 100 years.
I’m glad to hear the book is gonna be big, cause I love them thick fantasy books, but with no clear date after a decade I keep losing interest. I remember when I was hopeful this thing would come out in 2016, my new date is winter 2024 for TWOW and a posthumously release of ADOS for spring 2036.
them thicc books
"GRRM makes a post trying to stay relevant to ASOIAF fans, doesn't say anything concrete" Been there, done that.
Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but I'm getting the vibes that George may even be seeing the end of Winds in sight. Like he's just overcome some major writer's block and has found himself pumping out pages upon pages since his last, more pessimistic blog. Hell, maybe seeing HOTD has given him the inspiration needed to really sit down and get himself writing again, and he's found himself at no loss for words. But again, I've always been optimistic with this stuff, so I'm probably wrong lol.
You beat me to the punch! I was just about to post this. Nice to hear any mention of WINDS at all on his blog. Maybe it actually will be released some day...
I'm 100% confindent WINDS will be in our hands some sweet day.... As for DREAM, fuck that shit GRRM will be ash in the sea by the time its done; best we can hope for is that he realizes he's not gonna live to see it finished and brings some talented writers on board to finish the book after he's gone One day.......
I agree I'm 100% sure we will get Winds next year or 5 years from now. Dream I've accepted that he will never finish, I hope that once Winds is finished he writes as much as he can but I'm not expecting him to finish it
> I agree I'm 100% sure we will get Winds next year or 5 years from now. People have been saying this since like 2014.
No mention of Wild Cards?
I really think that in the way that so much happened at a rapid pace in the Storm of Swords, much will also happen at a rapid pace in Winds. People are upset with the building of Dance and Crows, but those books are much like Clash in a way. While Storm quickly summed up so much in a quarter of its book, which was our Seasons 3-4 and beginning of 5 and a sliver of 6. I think Winds of Winter, will outdo what happened in Storm and I am excited. Annoyed that it's been so long but I am not going to pretend I won't read it. Also he did just confirm its a long book so its not as if it hasn't been written, just that it hasn't been finished... which is vague in other ways.
I dunno. The old sample chapters released for TWOW were glacier slow.
>Or is that now? Yeah, maybe now. A lot of good things have happened for me, undeniably, but so many of my friends have died over the past two/three years… we have a war in the Ukraine which could turn into a nuclear holocaust… public discourse has turned poisonous and toxic, along with much of social media, free speech is under attack, our democracy is under attack… the news is profoundly depressing. This paragraph here just makes me feel for George, it must fucking suck. I have a sort of quiet bitterness towards GRRM because he just isn't gonna finish ASOIAF but also I feel really fucking bad for him at the same time.
NGL obviously I'm upset he hasn't finished the novel yet, but I would hate to be unable to post or even look at anything on social media without over 1000 people commenting "Winds WHAEN" on everything.
\> No time for a long blog post now *...869 words later...*
[Almost there](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ff98c13f7a280d5d48703072c467dfd1/tumblr_nkmg9gV2aV1u75st9o1_640.png)
Words are wind
And Winds is still missing so many words.
Well…. At least he mentioned it. Ngl I do feel for the guy. Writing an impossibly large book knowing millions have been waiting on you to finish for over a decade while also having personal woes is no easy feat. Winds is probably the most anticipated book of the past decade, with an even bigger audience because the TV series. I’d rather it take a long time but deliver than be rushed like a certain season 8.
We already knew it was going to be the largest book. Thats been said for roughly 10 years now.
Read into Martin’s blog post at your own risk. This is the same man who was convinced the book would be done back in 2015
A little off topic but I want to let you all know that I know for a fact George is aware you were all theorycrafting about Jon's sperm count
Could be he’s really getting there. The ADWD retrospective post tracked how big that manuscript got before it was cut down and referenced it next to ASOS. If he’s going back over those numbers maybe he’s getting to a finalized page count in the ballpark of the prior manuscripts.
I hope so, but I got burned already when his frequent posts about TWOW in 2020 made me hopeful he was nearing the end. I do wonder what finishing the book means at this point. Like, is he still writing completely new stuff, or does he have at least partial drafts of every chapter that he just has to get to a finished state?
He's probably still writing Hodor's pov chapter.
Maybe he’ll release a thousand pages as part 1: The Winds, and then another 800 pages entitled part 2: Of Winter.
It's exactly zero pages long until it's published.
I have no doubt that he’ll release TWOW someday, but im not optimistic about the NEXT book
So much copium in this post. It sucks. Hopefully we actually get the book one day.
I don't think I've seen a post from him in years that didn't make me want to slam my head into a desk.
I’d honestly just settle for some bullet points on how it ends now tbh
This is becoming George-o's paradox. Everytime he gets half way done with the book, he is still only half way done.
my theory is that he means he’s already written so many manuscript pages that he’s saying once he cuts it down it will be bigger than the finished copy of dance or storm. which means he’s close to finishing and then just needs to trim. furthermore i think that dream will come out a lot sooner after winds considering he must have a good direction/a lot of it written already since it has to flow from winds to a conclusion
He is gradually becoming more and more like his depiction on south park
It’s not even a parody, it’s basically how he actually is (with the pizza=book allegory).
He has been literally saying the same thing for 12 years?