Winter Is Not Coming; and "Winds" Officially No Longer a Priority.

[Platypus]

I had given up hope for finishing the series. But as far as Book 6 was concerned, there was a glimmer of hope in 2020. That was the year GRRM proudly told us he had written "hundreds and hundreds" of pages of WINDS, while temporarily isolated in his mountain retreat.

It was not that hopeful. He may have no more than 700 pages written -- 200 left over from winds, 400 written in 2020, and 100 written at other times. But as long as he kept working, it might mean something.

That's over. GRRM's latest NAB "Random Updates and Bits o'News", March 9, 2022, dashes all hopes. Here's some highlights.

> ... I seem to have an enormous number of projects. (I am not
> complaining. I like working. Writing, editing, producing. There
> is nothing I like better than storytelling). I know, I know, for many
> of you out there, only one of those projects matters. I am sorry
> for you. They ALL matter to me."

Well, that sounds passive aggressive. He's not sorry TO the book fans. He's sorry FOR us. We are now, the wrong kind of fans, apparently. Except that these are exactly the fans who made him the success that he is.

It's the ingratitute, arrogance and disrespect that I don't like. If it were not for that, I could happily forgive him. I understand that he is getting long in the tooth. I understand that writing 1000 page novels is hard work for young men. I don't want Sanderson to take over and will happily defend GRRM's right to hold on to his baby and tinker with it ineffectually til he dies at age 112.

> Yes, of course I am still working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. I have
> stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it
> endlessly is just wearisome."

Good grief! He gives his loyal, patient fans maybe one update a year on his notablog, if even that. And nobody wants to hear him say "I'm working on it". That means nothing. But he resents even giving us this nothing once a year.
How about a page count? so we know if its as much as 1400 pages, or as little as 600 pages, or something in between. It must be closer to the latter than the former or he would not be defensively lash out against fans who have the bad taste to still care about his failed story.

> I made a lot of progress on WINDS in 2020, and less in 2021… but
> “less” is not “none.”

He's been "working on it" for 11 years. And all we have learned is that he wrote a few hundred pages during lockdown isolation. And now that is over and we're back to business as usual.

In this context, saying his progress in any given year is "more than none" means nothing. 20 pages a year will not get us a sequel within our lifetimes; and 200 pages a year would have given us a 2200 page book by now.

> The world of Westeros, the world of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, is my
> number one priority, and will remain so until the story is told. But
> Westeros has become bigger than THE WINDS OF WINTER, or
> even A SONG OF ICE & FIRE.

He used to claim, despite increasing evidence to the contrary, that writing WINDS was his "top priority". That claim is now dropped.

> In addition to WINDS, I also need to deliver the second volume of
> Archmaester Gyldayn’s history, FIRE & BLOOD.

When he delivered the WORLD BOOK, in 2014, and blogged about all his left over writings, he claimed he would not publish FIRE & BLOOD at all until WINDS was delivered. He broke that promise to deliver the first volume. Now it looks like he will break it again to deliver the second.

> Got a couple hundred pages of that one written, but there’s still a
> long way to go.

Note that, for better or worse, he is not claiming he wrote this material recently. He may be, and I guess probably is, referring to material left over from his contributions to the WORLD BOOK.

> I need to write more of the Dunk & Egg novellas, tell the rest of their
> stories, especially since there’s a television series about them in
> development.

Easier said than done. The 4th Dunk & Egg novella was supposed to come out years many years ago. It never happened. This probably won't happen either.

> There’s a lavish coffee table book coming later this year, an illustrated,
> condensed version of FIRE & BLOOD done with Elio Garcia and Linda
> Antonsson (my partners on THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE), and my
> Fevre River art director, Raya Golden. And another book after that,
> a Who’s Who in Westeros. And that’s just the books.

I remember the fans being happy that he had delivered the first WORLD BOOK, since now he could focus on WINDS.

> There are also the successor shows.

He goes on considerably about these successor shows; and makes it pretty clear that this is what his priority is now. Well, I hope he has fun and makes lots of money.

[LM]

GRRM is a good example of writers who will not finish their book
projects. Time to learn.

[Platypus]

On Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 7:29:06 PM UTC-4, LM wrote:
> GRRM is a good example of writers who will not finish their book
> projects. Time to learn.

Some have voiced the suspicion that he never intended to finish. And there is some evidence for that. There is a curious old quote from him about how, if he were cynical, he would start writing a fantasy trilogy and keep writing it for the rest of his life. Also, there might be some truth to the suspicion that FEAST and DANCE represented, in part, an attempt to drag out a story plan that may already have been too vast in scope.

But even if that were the plan, it has stalled. We may have reached the point where GRRM is literally incapable of producing one more volume, much less finishing the series. It is a rare case where an author in his 80s can write a novel; and those authors invariably were authors who had no problem churning out novels in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. GRRM is already in his 70s, and has been "working on" the last novel for the last 11 years, with no indication he is more than half-way through.

One obvious solution would be to hire another author to finish the series for him. This will happen eventually, one way or the other, even if it is over GRRM's dead body.

Why has not GRRM done this already? Obviously, he wants to maintain creative control over his story. He really does want to finish the story himself, just as he really does want to live forever. Which is understandable, but not necessarily realistic. As for me, I support his right to tinker ineffectually with his baby as long as there is life left in him.

[Butterbumps@Home]

keskiviikko 16. maaliskuuta 2022 klo 22.33.40 UTC+2 Platypus kirjoitti:

Good to see you again!

> Some have voiced the suspicion that he never intended to finish. And
> there is some evidence for that. There is a curious old quote from him
> about how, if he were cynical, he would start writing a fantasy trilogy
> and keep writing it for the rest of his life. Also, there might be some
> truth to the suspicion that FEAST and DANCE represented, in part,
> an attempt to drag out a story plan that may already have been too
> vast in scope.

That certainly seems to be the case.

> But even if that were the plan, it has stalled. We may have reached
> the point where GRRM is literally incapable of producing one more
> volume, much less finishing the series. It is a rare case where an
> author in his 80s can write a novel; and those authors invariably
> were authors who had no problem churning out novels in their 50s,
> 60s, and 70s. GRRM is already in his 70s, and has been "working on"
> the last novel for the last 11 years, with no indication he is more
> than half-way through.

Yep. I mean, he produced the Fire and Blood book which I guess will be the basis for this new HBO series, and that may have seized his inspiration at this point. It wasn't a bad history! And it will make him a ton of money and maybe he'll have it in him to write the second half of it.

> One obvious solution would be to hire another author to finish the
> series for him. This will happen eventually, one way or the other,
> even if it is over GRRM's dead body.

Unless he prohibits it? What sort of legal standing does he have, copyright wise? Would it be up to his estate to decide that? I'm just as happy leaving it glorious and unfinished (your mileage may vary on the "glorious", but it was certainly a big ol' series, right?).

> Why has not GRRM done this already? Obviously, he wants to
> maintain creative control over his story. He really does want to
> finish the story himself, just as he really does want to live forever.
> Which is understandable, but not necessarily realistic.

*nod*

> As for me, I support his right to tinker ineffectually with his
> baby as long as there is life left in him.

I find myself in full agreement with you.

I noted your original post but will respond to both here in this reply, since I didn't see much else there to debate - I suppose the anger over his "treatment" of fans on his blog and in general is a sticking point, but your conclusion was solid. It is unfortunate that he's gone that way with it, but I will suggest that he deals with a *ton* of negativity and nagging day in, day out over this one book he's meant to finish, and it probably fuels his cantankerousness on the blog.

I mean, he could stop tweeting and get off social media. A lot of authors do that just to avoid the perpetual roar of unhappy fans who now seem to have this endless social media access and sense of entitlement since they can talk directly to the artist - and anonymously doing so is even worse. I can't imagine how exhausting and upsetting that must be. I wish he'd ignore it, and be happier as a result. I've said before that nobody is going to be more disappointed that the Song of Ice and Fire goes unfinished than GRRM himself, and I stand by that.


- C@h
--
www.hatboy.blog

[Platypus]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 6:51:04 AM UTC-7, Butterbumps@Home wrote:
> Good to see you again!

You too, Butterbumps.

> Unless he prohibits it? What sort of legal standing does he have, copyright wise? Would it be up to his estate to decide that?

No legal standing for dead men. As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. Dead men don't own property, and that applies just as much to intellectual property as it does to gold and silver. You can bury your gold and silver and tell no-one where it is hid, just to spite your relatives. And that might work well enough until someone finds the gold. But intellectual property rights cannot be hidden this way, because they are intangible. If GRRM does not want his wife Parris to get his literary rights in general, or his sequel rights in particular, he can assign them to his old friend Joe from Bayonne, NJ. But someone is going to hold those rights.

Under U.S. law, copyright is a restriction on freedom of speech, supposedly justified by a compelling interest in making sure that the author (and by extension his family) reap the financial rewards of the author's work. If that purpose is not being served in any remote sense, then the sequel rights might as well be in the public domain.

He could spite his relatives by throwing the sequel rights into the public domain. But this would not mean that no-one could write sequels. It would mean that everyone could.

But yes, to answer your third question, his estate, or whoever actually gets the sequel rights, could choose to sit on the sequel rights and not use them. But I can't imagine them doing that. It is hard, for instance, to imagine relatives feeling honor bound by GRRM's wish to spite his fans. High moral principles are not involved here. I have a hard time imagining them thinking "GRRM sold out to HBO for truckloads of money, but we will be better than that, and not sell at all, and die poor, and screw over our own children, just to honor his memory".

He could leave the rights to some youthful great-nephew, who happens to be highly honorable and religious, on condition that the great-nephew swears on a pack of bibles that said great nephew will never authorize any sequels. That might work for a generation or two, assuming a highly religious and honorable great nephew could be made to agree with so spiteful a plan. But even then, eventually, sequel rights will enter public domain.

But of course, no-one can stop him from burning his notes.

[Butterbumps@Home]

*snicker*

> He could leave the rights to some youthful great-nephew, who
> happens to be highly honorable and religious, on condition
> that the great-nephew swears on a pack of bibles that said
> great nephew will never authorize any sequels. That might
> work for a generation or two, assuming a highly religious
> and honorable great nephew could be made to agree with
> so spiteful a plan. But even then, eventually, sequel rights
> will enter public domain.

He'd be better off leaving the rights to a youthful religious chap who writes five books a year.

> But of course, no-one can stop him from burning his notes.

Okay, interesting. I was thinking of copyright lengths:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths

"They include copying in electronic form, the making of translated versions, the creation of a television program based on the work, and putting the work on the Internet."

"Copyright protects only the specific expression of an idea, not the idea itself. A collection of facts may be copyrighted if there was creative activity involved in compiling the collection. Several countries provide separate protection for collections of facts that qualify as "databases", but that provision is not considered copyright."

And in most places it's the duration of the artist's life, and 25 - 75 years after their death. 70 in the US. But who *holds* that copyright, after his sell-out, yes. That's where your analysis steps in and it all gets pretty murky.

So it's going to be interesting either way, what he decides to do when the time comes. I hope that time doesn't come soon, and frankly I wonder how much interest will remain in the whole property by then (let alone 70 years after his death! People are already over his work in a lot of cases). I guess if the new HBO series is a saucy hit, and Martin (or his inheritors) manages a proper ending of A Song of Ice and Fire and they think about doing more shows ... I don't know, it feels like the whole well is tapped. But one thing we know is, if an intellectual property makes money, they will go on adapting and rebooting it forever rather than try anything new.

Of course if he spite-locks the whole thing, I don't see interest lasting and he may ultimately get his wish from beyond the grave.



- B@w
--
www.hatboy.blog