/lit/ - Literature

the more he wrote

Rip Boogie.

What are the odds at this point he actually finishes the series? Overweight people don't live that long and he's already in his 70s

>>20475461
My brother
This must be the only reason he isn’t dead yet

>>20475601
Chance we get TWOW: 10%
Chance we get ADOS: 0%

>>20475461
OH NO OH NO OH NO AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>20475461
What is better?
the GRRM approach to writing
>write five books in a series and never finish, but the entire world hangs on your every word and is desperate to see what you write next
the Stephen King approach to writing
>shit out a book a year with no regard to whether it's good or not, write several genre fiction classics that will be remembered forever but haven't written anything of value in over a decade and probably won't make a proper comeback novel before you die

>>20475859
Well would you rather be King or Martin? You have to choose one

>>20475873
Stephen King. His net worth is 4 times that of Martin's and he's not a fat fuck either.

>>20475461
>I have not counted, but the two were neck and neck. He was also a Mets fan, a baseball buff, a RPG player and gamemaster, and a fan of bad movies. I wish he had written more. He had been working on a novel called BLACK TRAIN COMING even longer than I have been working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. It would be great if one of his writer friends finishes it for him.
Fat fuck just straight up said he is going to die and hopes one of his friends "finishes it for him". Such obvious projection.

>>20475885
I read this multiple ways;
>Look, I'm not the ONLY one taking this long to write books
>Don't get mad at me if I have to take some time off to finish my friend's project before finishing W'soW

>>20475880
Then you have your answer. Start shitting out drug induced horror like there's no tomorrow

The image of him waddling over to his forty year old computer, getting puffed out after clacking away for two minutes and obnoxiously slurping down a liter of mountain dew and an entire mutton joint to restore the energy he's expended , clacking out another sentence them wiping the sweat on his brow with his iconic cap and declaring
>That's a good start for today
And waddling away and not returning until tomorrow makes me smile to no end

>>20475848
This is very poor taste from him; it would be better if he said nothing and keep it a mistery if he works or not, or just saying, 'i will no be able to deliver.' This other attitude is cowardice, being soft, unable to commit to anything...this thing of giving excuses over and over and over is simply put, pathetic. It looks more like he wants to enjoy his life doing other things, literature related or from a more casual approach.

t.did not read the books

>community creates huge pressure on author
>author can no longer work on the book he's being pressured to write
>community: HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING TO ME?!?!??!?!
Give the fat old fuck a break. Get a life. Read another book. Read better books. There are so many amazing books to be read. It's hilarious that so many people spend so much time pining away for something that's basically Harry Potter for manchildren. Read Faulkner, Joyce, Proust, Pound, Pynchon, Dante, Cervantes. Start reading actually well written books and stop your parasocial circle jerk. Try bugging Pynchon to write another book, see how far you get.

>>20476573
>Give the fat old fuck a break.
No. If it weren't for his fans he'd be an English professor at a community college.

This shit is a perfect example of why fans are subhuman and should never be interacted with. It's like a legion of demented mothers all nagging their make-believe son to do his homework.
>b-but we are... le fans! we made him the money!
I'm sure that in five or so years, when he's dying of heart failure, he'll look back on his life and be overwhelmed with joy at the time he spent fomenting and interacting with his community. The money he's made will be great consolation when it's the best doctors in the world telling him there's nothing they can do compared to the average hospital doctor.

>>20476600
And if it weren't for his fans, that'd still be an option for him. He can't do that anymore, can he?

>>20476603
>This shit is a perfect example of why fans are subhuman and should never be interacted with. It's like a legion of demented mothers all nagging their make-believe son to do his homework.
The fans were pretty patient for about five years. It's been eleven.

>>20476612
Well, if you want it to be eternity, keep it up! It turns out that whining and lashing out isn't the best way to incentivize someone to do pretty much anything other than give you a bitchslap. No matter what you do, the reality is that the fatty owes you nothing. It will always, at the end of the day, be him hunched over his ThinkPad typing out the words. He's well within his rights to just say "fuck you" and retire to go fuck Thai ladyboys the rest of his short life. It's just a hilariously myopic and juvenile viewpoint adopted by the "fans." You're all doped to the gills on your groupthink. If you had the slightest capacity to step back and evaluate the dynamics of the community with which you're involved, you'd find it ridiculous as I do.

>>20476656
>Well, if you want it to be eternity, keep it up!
I don't even care anymore. It's been a decade, I barely even remember the plot now.
>It turns out that whining and lashing out isn't the best way to incentivize someone to do pretty much anything
It's his reputation, not mine. If he wants to be remembered by history as "the author who never finished his series because he was lazy" then that's his choice.

>>20476666
Remembered by who... the fans? The ones who spent the better part of a decade ganging up on him, and trying to bully him so he gives them what they want? I can see absolutely no reason why anyone would ever want to please a group of people trying to guilt trip you into doing something.
>we're the FANS!!!! you can't just... not give us what we want!!! because you just can't, OK?!?!??!?!??!!
No matter how grand you want to frame it—for the record, legacy is a ridiculous consideration for a genre shlock writer—the fact is that it's his decision. You are apologizing for a group of irrational people who really don't deserve their entitlement.

>>20476656
That's not true, he just said in the latest blog post he finished a clutch of Cersei chapters. He's a stubborn one but we'll break him yet.
Also didn't read your post past the f irst 10 words if that matters

>actually mentions specific chapters for once
this shouldn't give me hope, but it does

>>20476729
He probably did that in order to pacify the building rage from his fan community. This is a very carefully worded statement. I doubt it has any veracity. Like you though, I can’t help but feel a twinge of hope

>>20475461
>WINDS, you say? Yes, still working. Finally finished a clutch of Cersei chapters that were giving me fits. Now I am wrestling with Jaime and Brienne. The work proceeds, though not as fast as many of you would like.

I've only read a page or two of GRRRRM but just this brief comment, if it's verbatim, is enough to convince me he's a fat fraud. Does no-one else find the tone like nails on a blackboard?

What's annoying is the bland refusal to accept the basic facts of the situation, namely:
a) He writes crap. Competent crap, perhaps, but still crap.
b) The book isn't just late, it's ridiculously late.

Look at his phrasing:
>Finally finished
>giving me fits
>wrestling
>The work proceeds

He seems to be trying to suggest that he's engaged in a titanic struggle to produce a once-in-a-generation masterpiece and it's taking every ounce of his heart and mind and soul. No, George. You aren't Wagner writing Brünnhilde's funeral oration. You aren't Joyce spending a day rearranging the words in the sentence "Perfume of embraces all him assailed". You're a producer of fast food who has failed to deliver on the critical adjective in your job description. Either:

a) Just shut up.
b) Apologise sincerely. Say "I know I should have done it, but I haven't. Maybe it will be finished in a year or two, but I can't promise anything. Best you just stop waiting with bated breath."
c) Be rude, if that's how you feel. Say "Piss off."

Any of these would be better than the self-serving nonsense quoted by OP.

>>20476917
>Does no-one else find the tone like nails on a blackboard?
Of your post? Yes. Jesus christ, go hang yourself at reddit.

>>20476917
>I know I should have done it
The problem is that there is no "should." Because there's no actual obligation, there's nothing to apologize for. You shouldn't have to be rude to people to set your boundaries. Maybe this kind of casual disregard is the way he wants to deal with other people's problems. This mentality is like expecting an ex-girlfriend to give you closure after you blow up on her. It's even worse because you never even fucked GRRM. You're a complete stranger acting like you're entitled to some kind of closure as a third wheel to a process that's really none of your business.

I'm not defending GRRM here as much as I am trying to give a rational alternative to the way people want to interact with a complete stranger who happens to have written something they liked.

>>20476940
If you say you will have something done in months and 7 years later it’s not done, you were lying; even if you were at the same time also lying to yourself.

I used to shake my head and laugh at people who said he'd die before he finished the books. I'm not so dismissive of that opinion now.

>>20476950
You're completely disregarding the actual, operative point of my post. You got emotionally involved with something a public figure said. "The fans" are mad about something a fat fantasy author said almost a decade ago. That's really nobody's problem but yours. YOU need to deal with how emotionally involved you got because YOU were the one who built up all the expectation and bought into the butthurt, etc. It's your problem to deal with, regardless of what some fat genre writer said.

>>20476974
That was my first post in the thread (sorry for possible confusion).
I don’t read grrm.
I don’t inordinately care whether or not he releases the book.
Objectively speaking he lied, it really is as simple as that.

>>20476940
>The problem is that there is no "should."
I disagree. First of all there's an implicit agreement between author & reader that if the former starts a multi-volume work he won't just abandon it. No, such an agreement is not legally binding. What's that got to do with anything? Secondly, GRRM himself kept promising the book. After a year, after 18 months, after 2 years, etc.
I don't know how his fans have behaved but my guess is they were patient for a long time and then got a bit less patient. But that's not the issue. Either GRRM thinks his fans have a point, or he doesn't. If he thinks they do he should apologise in a straightforward manner. If he doesn't, he should not-apologize. As I said, I wouldn't have a problem with him not-apologizing rudely, if he thinks that's what's called for. But what he said was nonsense.

>>20477015
>First of all there's an implicit agreement between author & reader that if the former starts a multi-volume work he won't just abandon it
No, nope, no fucking way. This is the axiomatic and entitled belief at the crux of everything. If you didn't believe this, there's no reason to give the slightest shit about what he did or didn't say. This belief is the one I've been attacking. There is no such implicit agreement. You want there to be, but there isn't. What you are actually saying is that, completely without any actual reciprocation from the author, you believe that if you start a series, you're going to pretend he also agrees to finish it. Because the author doesn't respond to this "implicit agreement," (you've set up an unwinnable situation for the author — he can neither agree nor disagree with it without inviting more scorn from the "fans") you get to keep on believing it exists. It doesn't. What it's "got to do with anything" is that:
>>20476656
>It turns out that whining and lashing out isn't the best way to incentivize someone to do pretty much anything other than give you a bitchslap
If this implicit agreement doesn't exist—it doesn't—then the way the "fanbase" acts is not pressuring the author to "hold up his side of the bargain" as much as it is acting against your own ostensible interests by pretending you have any power in what's actually a completely powerless position.

It's dumb. I point this out because the way you guys go about this and argue for your approach is dumb. It's nonsensical. It feels on completely make-believe agreements backed by monopoly money and entitlement.

>>20475848
He should get an award for inventing the "two more weeks" meme.

>>20477055
>You want there to be, but there isn't.
You want there not to be, but there is. Of course it depends. If an author produces one book which might or might not be the start of something, and then gives up on that world, no-one's going to be too upset. But if he writes six books (or however many it is) which have a definite progression and then doesn't produce the seventh which wraps everything up, people have a right to be irked. Not only are they left hanging, but they'veve invested much more time in six books than in just one.

Your attitude seems to be, "no obligations except legal ones exist". Fine; we'll just have to agree to differ.

But anyway, as I said, that's irrelevant. Even if you were right, the comment OP quoted would still be annoying, because GRRM isn't apologising and he isn't not-apologising. He's sort-of apologising in a dishonest way, based on the idea that his books are better than they are.

>>20475974
haha returning tomorrow? you have an optimisitic view of his writing process. More like returns in a month

>>20477098
>Your attitude seems to be, "no obligations except legal ones exist". Fine; we'll just have to agree to differ.
No, retard. Provide one single scintilla of evidence that it is an AGREEMENT. One party cannot facilitate an agreement. That is called a demand, when it comes from one party. No matter how many people you can find all farting into each other's ears, it is not an agreement. Provide evidence for this agreement. Provide evidence, beyond the limp-wristed "jeez these weirdos are pretty serious about this, i better say something so they don't break into my house and murder me" that's he's given.

Pay a little bit less attention to what my attitude SEEMS to be, and try thinking about what I'm saying. If there's no agreement, you have no right to closure of any kind. Expecting it this way and kicking and screaming and whining gets you nowhere in life.

>>20476702
forget grrm. hes never gonna finish the series. im waiting for him to die so a competent author can pick it up and knock there series out in 5 or so years. truly frustrating that covid didnt get him

>>20477120
If you can't be civil we'll have to stop discussing this. The "agreement" is implicit, of course, just like hundreds of agreements we make in life.

The nature of the story itself determines the strength of the implicit promise and hence the strength of the obligation. Take the Narnia books for example. They all take place in the same world and there is some continuity but they're much more stand-alone. No-one particularly demanded a certain number; CSL wrote sequels as they occurred to him. But GRRM's thing isn't like this, is it? There's a definite story with cliff-hanger endings and large-scale arcs and so on. Even if they don't explicitly have "BOOK ONE OF SEVEN", "BOOK TWO OF SEVEN" etc on the covers, the story itself is promising that.

If GRRM had said publicly "Look, I'm just making this up as I go along, exploring the universe as & when it takes my fancy, so I can't promise a conclusion", fair enough. People would have less cause for complaint. But he went the other way, from what I hear; i.e. his public comments right from the start said he conceived the work as a whole story which he was intending to finish.

>>20475859
Stephen King has not written a single good book in his entire life, and I got memed into reading lots of them.
Not that Martin is high art, but first three ASOIAF books are miles above anything King ever wrote

TWOW is almost finished, and Dreams will be much easier to write since all the plotlines will converge in Westeros at that point and he wont have to juggle 20 of them at once.
Redditors will eternally seethe when based grrm delivers both books in next 5 years and shatters the "its never getting finished" meme.

>>20477198
>The "agreement" is implicit, of course, just like hundreds of agreements we make in life.

And I would add to this, no asoiaf fan that I know of argues that they have any kind of viable *legal* claim, lying in tort or contract, against GRRM. They merely claim they have a moral right, as a were, to complain, for the reasons that >>20477198 explains. And whether that belief is valid or invalid, there is nothing in the law, as such, which contravenes the claim (so long as matters do not rise to the point of any fan engaging in a tort versus GRRM, whether making threats or what-have-you, which so far as I know no one has). Indeed, the various freedom of speech laws establish a general right which protects fans in their desire to speak out and complain, and provides no such equivalent right to GRRM to be protected from such speech, vexing as it might be.

>>20475461
The fact he said Brienne chapters means Brienne is well alive enough and Jaime still kicking

>>20477544
Was there ever any doubt? He can’t bring himself to kill any of his pet characters.

>>20476961
Some of us have been around since the beginning of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. We've experienced an epic fantasy author dying before completing a series. Hell, we all joked that Robert Jordan was going to die without finishing it. It like a preview of this whole George R.R. Martin meme. I stopped reading the WoT series myself because I felt like it was likely and only read through the thing once Sanderson completed it.

>>20477568
she's not a zombie at least, unless it's gonna be zombie thoughts

>>20475859
King. He occasionally still puts out a good book, and he has a few completed genre classics to his name.

>>20475873
Dawg I’ll take king for the lack of heart disease

Sunset found him groaning in the grass, like a constipated fat man straining to write.

>>20477544
>>20477568
Jaime has valanquar and Azor Ahai prophecy to fufill before he dies

>>20477683
based jaimebro

>>20477696
I REFUSE to take my meds

Honestly I think the real reason he’ll never finish it is because he’s terrified that it won’t be well received

>>20477803
that boomer unironically doesnt read anything online besides his blog

When it comes out it will be a 5000 pages epic that will save humanity.

>>20475461
>Finally finished a clutch of Cersei chapters that were giving me fits
Fits of uncontrollable cooming Im sure

>>20477881
more lesbian sex scenes where Cersei pretends she is Robert

>>20477236
>all the plotlines will converge in Westeros at that point and he wont have to juggle 20 of them at once
That just means he'll have to finish them all in WoW, which sounds rather difficult.

>>20475461
>11 Years.
>11 YEARS.
>A "clutch" of chapters.
>A "Clutch"
>11 Years.

>>20477652
Anon he’s in his 70s without heart disease. I don’t think he’s going to get it. He’s just built different.

>>20477941
You don't know his health. He apparently hasn't left his house since 2020. That can't be good for you.

>>20475859
GRRM is a year younger, so him.

>>20477977
Who is more healthy? A fat person or a life-long cokehead?

>>20475848
It’s weird how this is sort of fine in a work environment where you know there’s an uncertainty built into deadlines, but as soon as you give a deadline to a customer/client/the public it would be set in stone and very bad to miss. It’s like he’s never worked a real job so he doesn’t understand that you don’t give tentative deadlines to clients.

>>20477981
King nearly died of pneumonia earlier this year, so apparently a fat person.

>>20477986
>It’s like he’s never worked a real job
GRRM worked for VISTA (a government organization similar to the Peace Corps) during the Vietnam War because he was a conscientious objector but other than that he has literally never had a job other than writing, as far as I can tell.

>>20477897
>which sounds rather difficult.
It is. That's why it's been more than a decade.

>>20475634
What a loser. So he has been in his house for years and he still even then hasn’t done anything productive like write the book? What the hell else has he been doing?

People keep forgetting there are 2 books after TWoW. We are literally never getting those, regardless of if TWoW gets rel3or not it makes no difference. The series will no be finished in GRRM's lifetime.

>>20478332
His demographic has basically 110% chance of death if he gets Covid. I wouldn’t go out either if I were him.
Probably a bunch of zoom meetings for his other projects, working on his other projects, and jerking off to fanart.

>>20478347
>I wouldn’t go out either if I were him.
Covid is seasonal now. If he ever wants to leave his house again he must lose some weight.

>>20476940
>HE DOESN'T OWN YOU ANYTHING!!!! >:(
Yes he does. He set a story up, now he is obligated to deliver a finisher, he owes me a satisfying ending.
(I'm arguing from a hypothetical position of a asoiaf fan, ive never read the books myself nor watched the show)

>>20476702
>I can see absolutely no reason why anyone would ever want to please a group of people trying to guilt trip you into doing something.
How do you disassociate this hard? You sterilized that idea so hard even a hospital would be like wtf.

Its art its not in a vacuum, and obviously his ego is big enough that he lives the attention. Its not like he was a recluse making books for himself and they were leaked. He published them, went out of his way to talk to fans and then strung them along.

He devloped a relationship with his readers and then tarnished it. If he chose to be a recluse no one would be bothering him at all.

>>20475859
The Brandon Sanderson approach to writing:
>Oh, I'm locked down because of the coof? That means I can dedicate more time to writing

Stephen King just writes new stuff so there's buzz about him so his classics will sell a little more

Why are there people unironically defending George? And how much are they being paid?

>>20478465
People just like to argue. Arguing is fun.

>>20478476
>I enjoy pretending to be retaded
>being retarded is fun

>>20478508
It's literally how philosophy was created.

>>20477055
I haven't given a fuck about this in years but even back then Martin had blown through dozens of soft deadlines he has himself provided.
It isn't entitlement to be upset with someone for going back on their word for years and years. At some point you become the clown for continuing to take them seriously, but this doesn't make them any more respectable.

>>20478332
Being stuck in your house is a lot less lame when you live in a mansion and are richer than god. He could afford to have a little Egyptian boy follow him around all day feeding him grapes as he dictates his writing in papyrus if he so chose

>>20475461
Do you guys think his publisher nags him to finish or what? He's gone through years worth of deadlines

>>20475601

Gene Wolfe died in his late 80s, and Martin's not any fatter than him.

>>20475461
can't wait until this fucker dies.

>>20478919
Only in the gentlest terms. Any other publisher would take him in a second.

speaking of fantasy authors that don't finish writing their book series... Melanie Rawn still hasn't finished book 3 (Mage Captal's Tower) in the Ruins of Ambrai trilogy. I've been waiting 20 years, the first 2 were the hardest because online said she was working on it, but clearly that wasn't happening. When she finally came out with a new book and it was an entirely new series, i knew it was time to let go.

>>20480811
>reading wom*n
anyway I read that fat fuck Rothfuss when I was a kid and will read next book for shitposting purposes when/if it comes out.
Last one come out about the same time as Dance

>brown water
>mummer's farce
>boiled leather
>moon blood
>lobstered gauntlets

>>20481320
That passage actually triggered my fight or flight response. That is levels of cuck I didn't know were possible.

>>20477216
The Shining, at least, is a significant piece of American literature beyond the genre ghetto; Apt Pupil is pretty good too, and relevant to the interests of this place.

>>20481441
>boiled leather
that is a real thing

>>20477236
it's gotten to the point where you """people""" think five years is a short amount of time to write lmao
it took him less than five years to write the first three books (the only good ones) in total lmao

What was aragorn's tax policy?

We'll be getting an eight book focusing on the conflict with The Others/New Long Night while The Winds of Winter focuses on finishing up and wrapping up all the plot points started in AFFC/ADWD.

At this point, why not just wrap up the series with The Winds of Winter? He isn’t going to finish anything after that.

>>20475601
Finish the series? Absolutely none whatsoever. He wants to do six more Dunc & Egg novellas and second volume of Fire and Blood, you can bet your ass those will take priority over ADOS.

>>20482481
>second volume of Fire and Blood
Thought we were getting two more in fact

>>20482486
NANI

>>20475461
Kneel to the King, /lit/chuds. The man who saved fantasy.

>>20482497
How? How did he save it?

>>20482490
No, my mistake. Just looked it up. Thank fuck

>>20482503
By detailing Robert’s tax policy

>>20481482
The Shining was a good book, but Kubrick turned it into a great movie. That's probably why King hated it, having his story made so much better by another.

>>20475873
>Well would you rather be King or Martin
King is an extreme far left groomer. Pure mental illness.

You guys realize Martin has always been a progressive just waiting to get out right? Whatever plans he had before, he will have changed to make his books more woke. Winds will be all about feminism. He will probably slip in some more characters of color to pass off his fans that he considers too far right. Look at everything that has come out of his mouth in the past 10 years. He's an SJW echo chamber.

>>20476603
>>20476612
Tolkien had wonderful fans because he was a wonderful man
he also lived in a time before twitter, which is a cesspool of all the worst emotions

>>20477236
2 more weeks anon
next year WOW will be published!

>>20475859
Are there actually any good Stephen King books? I figured he was probably like Sanderson or Michael Bay - a business-minded craftsman with flashy ideas that stick to the Reddit mind, but with no real creative vision whatsoever.

>>20482789
As if there's not already feminism present throughout the whole series lmao

>>20475461
What's funny about this is that it reads as if he hasn't figured out where the Jamie and Brianne story is going yet. Book 4 and 5 have their story come together in a big cliffhanger which it sounds like he hasn't even started writing yet. How many other story arcs has he not started writing for winds. I feel like he's doesn't just need to write the book but needs to figure out what is even happening in the book which is a bit more disheartening considering it has been 11 years.