I kind of get his troubles. I dislike deadlines, specially when other people decide them, and probably tend to do better when I do things on my own terms, and they're done when they're done - meaning, they're usually done earlier without deadline.
Besides, no reason to be pissed off at him, he's frank and honest, and, unlike with Dance with Dragons, he hasn't spent time telling people book was nearly ready, 4 years before its actual release. He's learned the lesson and has quite well managed communication, so far. And it's clear he wants to finish it and is trying hard to write and get it done.
While he didn't mention it, I think his efforts to salvage the Hugos from their current messy infighting also slowed things down when it comes to writing Winds of Winter. Not that I'd hold this against him, it's understandable, and he's done a great job trying to avoid things going downhill as bad as they could go, trying to act like an adult in charge (for an example of allegedly adult people badly managing such a situation to the point of having things go nuclear, see Gamergate
); not sure it was enough to avoid things going downhill for good, but he did his best and it's not his fault.
Still, the original mistake was probably selling rights and doing the show before he was actually writing the very last book. Though I can't fault him much for that, because there's a good cast, because it was HBO, because first seasons were mostly quite great. A shame, it was a terrible dilemma. We'll never know if we would've got a better show, had he decided to wait another 10 years to make a TV series deal - though we'd have an earlier ending to the book series, and wouldn't have any spoiler from the TV series.
Silentpony said:
Also good luck selling the book George if the show starts spoiling it.
Considering the first books sales increased greatly after the series aired, so when people already knew what was happening in first book, I'd expect some viewers to buy it. Readers-first of course will flock.
Of course, I don't think Winds of Winter will have any chance to compete with the insane Dance with Dragons release sales numbers, but I'd expect it to perform far better than the first 4 books did, because reader base has vastly expanded.
Sure, publishers would be disappointed not to have a second Dance monster seller on their hands, but that was close to a one-time event, considering the situation.
Last book (so 7 or 8
) sales will be higher, I suppose, for obvious reasons.
Seraj33 said:
And the others who believe they are entitled to his work by some kind of birthright, selfish assholes.
Some, sure. But many readers have reasons not to be really glad with the situation, because they're the ones who bought the book and got word-of-mouth in the wider world. They're one of the key reasons why it was made a show. Without readers, you can write a great book, but it won't matter much to your bank account.
Now, this doesn't mean they can expect a new book every couple of years. They just should expect GRRM to try to finish the series, without putting it aside for a decade to work on fully different projects for instance, and they can expect - and should ask - him to write the best possible book, like he did earlier. Some kind of entitlement isn't totally ridiculous, but it is a limited one. Basically, first part of this post is quite clear that I support him, wish him good, and hope he can write a good book - I obviously don't fear him messing it up and botching the job by rushing it, it's clear he tries to write quality first, even with the huge pressure he's facing now.
Samtemdo8 said:
I blame the fact that he chose to write the script and screenplay for the show all.
Rarely do I here an author of a book also write for any visual adaption.
He's spent years if not decades writing TV scripts, so it's not a wonder.
That said, he only wrote one episode per season, for the first 4 seasons, he didn't write all of the scripts - 5th season, he knew he had delayed too much the writing of next book, and he probably wasn't very happy with many changes in the show, so he withdrew from writing team.
