The Hollywood Reporter has posted a new and thorough interview with George R.R. Martin, that will be of immense interest to his many fans. Perhaps even the ones who have practically given up on ever seeing the release of The Winds of Winter, the next-to-last chapter of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga.
As those of you who have been fans of the franchise in its various incarnations from the original books to HBO's Game of Thrones and follow-up series know, it has been fifteen YEARS since 2011's A Dance with Dragons, the previous installment of the novel cycle. Apparently The Winds of Winter was supposed to be out within a year or two, three at the most, following Dance. That obviously did not happen. And the wait became longer. And longer. And loooonger...
And now? I'm with the other GRRMblers: I've pretty much abandoned all hope that we'll ever get this novel.
According to the interview at Hollywood Reporter, Martin has around 1,100 words in his manuscript. That's roughly 1.5 pages a week since presumably starting writing soon after A Dance with Dragons. It should NOT take this long to write a novel if its author knows its plot and where it's going. When I dedicated the better part of a year to writing Keeping the Tryst, I was sometimes knocking out 5 or 6 pages a day. It depended on how much of a hot streak I found myself on. At worst I was getting a couple of pages done every other day. Which doesn't seem like much, but over the course of a year - and there was also already the material that I had written over the previous nine years at various times - those pages build up.
There is no reason at all why Martin could not have delivered The Winds of Winter as well as the final novel of the series A Dream of Spring already. Not in usual circumstances anyway.
Here is what happened, I think. And I kind of knew this was what was going to transpire before I had read the first page of A Game of Thrones or seen the HBO series. I anticipated from the first announcement of the TV show that the books would never be finished in a timely fashion. I figured - and correctly, it seems - that Martin would get too bogged down and involved with the television side of the franchise. It would detract him from the novels until he was detached from them completely. Television, well... it does strange things to a person. It's the visual allure. It's all nice and flashy. The written word on real paper cannot compete with that, for a lot of people (maybe most people even). There is the temptation to throw one's self completely into the video medium and all the power and affluence that comes with it. That is what happened to George R.R. Martin. He never abandoned the world of Westeros. He just decided for good or ill that the television portion of the franchise - which is evidently the most important - was going to take precedence.
Was he right to do that? I'll let that question be an exercise for the reader. Tastes and expectations vary with each person, and that's not wrong. And I'm not going to say that Martin was wrong to indulge in the TV angle of his saga.
But still... fifteen years... and no follow-up novel in sight.
Maybe if nothing else, what has happened to A Song of Ice and Fire will be an object lesson in the perils of style over substance. Of fame over function. Maybe it will be a warning to anyone else who gets goggle-eyed about the shiny lure of Big Media and what it means to sacrifice product for pride.
I will absolutely be among the first to order The Winds of Winter as soon as it becomes available on Amazon. I first read A Game of Thrones when I was at a much different place in my life than where I am now, or probably will be when Martin finishes this next book. Things have come and gone along the journey of my life, but love of a good novel series endures. Just as I began Stranger Things when I was in New Mexico on my year-long journey across America. I started watching that show when I was in one place of my life and a few weeks ago I finished it when I was in quite another. I can be the same for A Song of Ice and Fire.
I just hope I won't be drawing Social Security when that happens!
