Octopus Overlords

Canuck wrote:

Carpet_pissr wrote:Dude is only 67! Admittedly he doesn't look like he's in top shape, but still...unless you guys know something about his medical history that I don't, he's likely to live quite a few more years.

Depends on your definition of "quite a few more". The average life expectancy in the US is 76 and you don't need to be a doctor or have access to his medical records to see that he is a classic candidate for all kinds of potential early deaths. I think 72 would be a generous estimate which means if her hurries and gets this next book out he should have time to get one more in-although I doubt his writing speed is going to increase in his latter years.
On the other hand, who knows? I've heard he's started a new workout routine.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have a good part of the last book already written. We're talking 3000 pages here that are being split into 2 books instead of 2 distinct books. He just has parts he wants to include to round out the next book that's preventing it from being released. He definitely wouldn't admit he had 500 pages of the last one done already given how rabid the fans are now.

ericb wrote:

Canuck wrote:

Carpet_pissr wrote:Dude is only 67! Admittedly he doesn't look like he's in top shape, but still...unless you guys know something about his medical history that I don't, he's likely to live quite a few more years.

Depends on your definition of "quite a few more". The average life expectancy in the US is 76 and you don't need to be a doctor or have access to his medical records to see that he is a classic candidate for all kinds of potential early deaths. I think 72 would be a generous estimate which means if her hurries and gets this next book out he should have time to get one more in-although I doubt his writing speed is going to increase in his latter years.
On the other hand, who knows? I've heard he's started a new workout routine.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have a good part of the last book already written. We're talking 3000 pages here that are being split into 2 books instead of 2 distinct books. He just has parts he wants to include to round out the next book that's preventing it from being released. He definitely wouldn't admit he had 500 pages of the last one done already given how rabid the fans are now.

I humbly disagree. Remember that he said at the time that he was going into TWoW with several chapters already complete because he'd opted not to use them in ADwD. At least, I seem to recall that being the case. And if so, well, that didn't get us very far, did it? And maybe I missed it, but I haven't seen anywhere that he's suggested he's got work done on ADoS as of yet. I think he'll be doing well if he can just hand TWoW off to his publisher.

Because I'm a cynical bastard, my guess is that he's going to wait until HBO wraps the series up before he finishes the novels. He'll gauge how the fans react to whatever the HBO writers come up with and then change/modify/adjust accordingly.

Odin wrote:

Cortilian wrote:Reading the last 2 books was a chore for me. However, listening to them on audiobook was awesome. I erally liked the last 2 books after listening to then as opposed to reading them.

I'm curious - which version of A Feast for Crows did you listen to? I have John Lee's, and it's fucking horrible. A guy on Reddit does an admirable job of summing up why I hate it:

"Although I've enjoyed John Lee's readings of other books, his AFFC is a complete train wreck. He doesn't 'get' the rhythm of GRRM's writing, and seems to overemphasise one random word in each sentence. There is no distinction between the characters' speech and thoughts (ie. the bits GRRM puts in italics) and that makes it really hard to follow. Just no."

If I had to listen to him say "the sea. STONE. chair." one more time I was going to murder somebody. Or myself. Or one then the other. I dunno, but gah!! Taking a moderately crappy book about Brienne wandering in the woods to no actual purpose chapter after chapter after chapter and then having to listen to that monkey read it just added insult to injury. Sadly, the reviews of Dotrice's read for it have been nearly as bad, so I've just stopped getting the audiobooks. My commute/business travel no longer requires them anyway.

I got Roy Dotrice's version. It wasn't bad IMHO but I'm prejudiced. I've liked everything he has done.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's close, but GRRM is shutting down all his writing other than Wild Cards editing until Winds is done.

#gotime

Zaxxon wrote:#gotime

Game of Thrones is My Enemy?

LordMortis wrote:

Zaxxon wrote:#gotime

Game of Thrones is My Enemy?

Got One Throne It's Most Excellent.

GRRM Only Thinks It's of Medium Expediency

Someone send him a time machine so he can make this decision in 2011

New (?) sample chapter up.

Still not done, though.

And no, just to spike any bullshit rumors, changing the sample chapter does NOT mean I am done. See the icon up above? Monkey is still on my back... but he's growing, he is, and one day...

For kicks, here are stats of words written post-AGoT publication (leaving book 1 out of the stats since that wasn't written on any real timeline). Obviously these are incorrect, as GRRM didn't start each successive book the day the prior was published, tWoW isn't exactly 75% done, books get 'finished' by GRRM months before they're published, etc. But the time frames involved are large enough that the guesswork isn't likely material to the overall conclusion--differences of half a year or more would impact the words/day stats by small amounts.

Word count of the first 5 books: 1,770,000
Word count of the first 6 (including tWoW, assuming it's the same size as the average of the first 5): 2,124,000
Word count written to date, assuming tWoW is 75% done (it damned well better be further than this...): 2,035,500
Word count written post-AGoT, same assumption: 1,737,500
Date AGoT was first published: 8/6/1996
Days b/t 8/6/1996 and 5/12/2016: 7,219
Overall words written per day: 241

Publication date of ASoS: 8/8/2000
Word count of books 2 and 3: 750,000
Days b/t 8/6/1996 and 8/8/2000: 1,463
Words written per day on books 2 and 3: 512

Word count of books 4-6, with 6 being 75% done: 987,500
Days b/t 8/8/2000 and 5/12/2016: 5,756
Words written per day on books 4-6: 171.6

For reference, Zax' post is 217 words.

Jeff V wrote:For reference, Zax' post is 217 words.

Took about 5 minutes, so that's...

Carry the three...

62,500 words/day. I rock?

Zaxxon wrote:

Jeff V wrote:For reference, Zax' post is 217 words.

Took about 5 minutes, so that's...

Carry the three...

62,500 words/day. I rock?

You should offer to finish the series for GRRM.

Zaxxon wrote:

Jeff V wrote:For reference, Zax' post is 217 words.

Took about 5 minutes, so that's...

Carry the three...

62,500 words/day. I rock?

At that pace you should be able to crank out a SoIaF book in about a month. Start now!

Well, my calculation was off. I can only write during the day because the night is dark and full of terrors. Unfortunately, I don't think GRRM is interested in handing the project off. That's too bad, because I was looking forward to exploring the intersection of Hodor, Patchface, and FrankenGregor.

Has he been actively squashing fan fiction?

He's known to be against it in general. I don't know about actively squashing, though.

Most writers would settle for 171 words a day if it meant getting them all perfect on the first draft...

I am at the point where I am willing to transition from Song of Ice and Fire the book series to Game of Thrones the TV series. I will just take the TV series as canon and ignore GRRM's books.

I am re-reading the Malazan series and Steven Erikson writes for fans (probably not the exact same fanbase as GRRM due to the nature of his writing). GRRM has always seemed like someone who wrote with a complete disregard for fans of the series and I am not just talking about killing off main characters. I am mostly talking about the numerous dead ends he writes where he introduces a cool character solely for the purpose of killing them off when you get comfortable. Even worse are the characters he writes in and when they experience their requisite horrible deaths you could still give two shits afterwards.

Holman wrote:Most writers would settle for 171 words a day if it meant getting them all perfect on the first draft...

When I was writing, I was spitting out thousands of words that nearly always got a green light from editors first draft/only draft. GRRM is not writing a textbook on perfect prose, he's telling a story. Once he figures out the story, the words should come in prodigious quantity. I've read some atrocious first-draft dreck from best-selling authors before, and, well, that's what editors are for. Self-editing is fine if it doesn't interfere with the timeliness of the output; but it's still going to go to an editor and unless he's really horrible at putting coherent thoughts down well the first time, he shouldn't be brought to such a pitifully low word output.

Well there we go. Jeff will fix it because of course he will.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

SlapBone wrote:I am at the point where I am willing to transition from Song of Ice and Fire the book series to Game of Thrones the TV series. I will just take the TV series as canon and ignore GRRM's books.

I am re-reading the Malazan series and Steven Erikson writes for fans (probably not the exact same fanbase as GRRM due to the nature of his writing). GRRM has always seemed like someone who wrote with a complete disregard for fans of the series and I am not just talking about killing off main characters. I am mostly talking about the numerous dead ends he writes where he introduces a cool character solely for the purpose of killing them off when you get comfortable. Even worse are the characters he writes in and when they experience their requisite horrible deaths you could still give two shits afterwards.

Well...books 1-3 were GREAT. Books 4-5 were meh. Because I won't buy hardbounds and am too lazy (and basically to slow a reader) to use the library I don't read his books until they hit paperback. The last book took almost 1 1/2 years to hit paperback. So I am not thinking I will read book 7 (assuming that is the last book) until sometime mid-next decade.

SlapBone wrote:I am at the point where I am willing to transition from Song of Ice and Fire the book series to Game of Thrones the TV series. I will just take the TV series as canon and ignore GRRM's books.

I'm at a point, too. I don't know what the point is, precisely, but I know I'm sick of waiting on the new novel(s). Especially since I'm somewhat disappointed by them once I have them in hand. The first three novels in ASoIaF started with outstanding (AGoT) and actually got better, up to the pinnacle of the entire series to date, ASoS. I was very let-down by AFfC, between the overly-heavy focus on new characters/areas which, by and large, I didn't find that interesting (or interesting enough to justify the page count devoted to them, rather than to things I DID care about) plus what I refer to as the "wild good chase" which had one (seemingly pretty minor) character fruitlessly and in excruciating detail traipsing hither and yon page after page after goddamn page, ultimately accomplishing nothing except wasting a lot of ink and paper. Gah - that book drives me crazy!

I was only somewhat more satisfied with ADwD. Certainly nothing close to the high of ASoS. So that's, what, two books over a 12-year period or something? Neither of which held up to even the worst (and I use that term loosely, as it was a great book) of the original three?

I think it may be time to shelve this series until it's done or officially unfinished (because Martin gives up or dies or whatever) or whatever happens to it. Much like I did with The Wheel of Time (which worked out great, really). Hell, if I'm going to be spoiled for the ending of the series by watching the show anyway, (or the equally likely scenario where, were I not to watch the show, I would be spoiled by HUGE HEADLINES all over social and print media letting me know exactly how Dany, Jon, and Tyrion swooped in on their dragons, ate all the white walkers and anyone else they didn't like, then had a big orgy that ended up being Jon and Dany mostly watching while Tryion screwed anything with two legs while thoroughly drunk.)

So since I'm going to know how the damn thing ends, there's no longer any rush for me to finish the books. I'll collect them as they come out, stick them on a shelf, and when it's been long enough that the details are a little fuzzy and the series is finally, finally done (if ever), I'll go back and read the whole damn thing from the beginning.

Odin wrote:I would be spoiled by HUGE HEADLINES all over social and print media letting me know exactly how Dany, Jon, and Tyrion swooped in on their dragons, ate all the white walkers and anyone else they didn't like, then had a big orgy that ended up being Jon and Dany mostly watching while Tryion screwed anything with two legs while thoroughly drunk.

On second thought, you take over for GRRM.

Jeff V wrote:

Holman wrote:Most writers would settle for 171 words a day if it meant getting them all perfect on the first draft...

When I was writing, I was spitting out thousands of words that nearly always got a green light from editors first draft/only draft. GRRM is not writing a textbook on perfect prose, he's telling a story. Once he figures out the story, the words should come in prodigious quantity. I've read some atrocious first-draft dreck from best-selling authors before, and, well, that's what editors are for. Self-editing is fine if it doesn't interfere with the timeliness of the output; but it's still going to go to an editor and unless he's really horrible at putting coherent thoughts down well the first time, he shouldn't be brought to such a pitifully low word output.

I guess all the fiction writers I've ever read or seen interviewed about their craft were just sloppy and lazy.

Holman wrote: I guess all the fiction writers I've ever read or seen interviewed about their craft were just sloppy and lazy.

Quite possibly (although I'd never suggest it of Stephen King among others). I've never written a novel because I don't have enough confidence in the creative process, but I have a lot of confidence in my technical proficiency. If ever I could muster a compelling story, I don't doubt it would fly off my fingers in no time and would cause no undue stress to the editor.

Zaxxon wrote: Word count of books 4-6, with 6 being 75% done: 987,500
Days b/t 8/8/2000 and 5/12/2016: 5,756
Words written per day on books 4-6: 171.6

Damn, Boss. We were doing it wrong. Millions for hundreds instead of thousands for thousands. Someone should have told us it was backwards-math!

Blackhawk wrote:

Zaxxon wrote: Word count of books 4-6, with 6 being 75% done: 987,500
Days b/t 8/8/2000 and 5/12/2016: 5,756
Words written per day on books 4-6: 171.6

Damn, Boss. We were doing it wrong. Millions for hundreds instead of thousands for thousands. Someone should have told us it was backwards-math!

Yeah, next they'll tell me GRRM doesn't also have to play games for hundreds of hours before writing.

Jeff V wrote:

Holman wrote: I guess all the fiction writers I've ever read or seen interviewed about their craft were just sloppy and lazy.

Quite possibly (although I'd never suggest it of Stephen King among others). I've never written a novel because I don't have enough confidence in the creative process, but I have a lot of confidence in my technical proficiency. If ever I could muster a compelling story, I don't doubt it would fly off my fingers in no time and would cause no undue stress to the editor.

Fiction isn't written like nonfiction, though, and technical proficiency is only the starting point. If GRRM is like most novelists (especially sprawling novelists), the final product bears only a limited relationship to the first conception. Characters take on lives of their own, themes become clear only in the process of writing the story, minor plots become major ones, etc. All of this requires a lot of revision. Only the most formulaic stories are known before they're begun.

As it happens, I think the weakness of the recent volumes of ASOI&F is that GRRM feels like he's flying a little blind. He seems less good at revision, and he's letting his subplots run away with him.

(In the fiction world, incidentally, authors are their own editors. Very few editors remain who actually collaborate to revise a novel or short story. It's all on the author to get it right; the editor is essentially a first critic and gate-keeper and then, if the manuscript is accepted, a project manager getting it through the press and into the market.)

Tolkien's LOTR is a great example of revision in process. Tolkien hadn't even imagined the Nazgul when he started the story; in the first drafts, Aragorn was a hobbit called Trotter; Treebeard was first presented as an enemy in the Old Forest; the events of ROTK weren't yet clear when The Two Towers was begun; etc. It's the same with most literary fiction. Authors develop their story by writing it, not by planning it all beforehand and then just putting it on paper.

In case you didn't see it in the YouTube thread - thought this was appropriate considering the recent posts

https://youtu.be/XAAp_luluo0

Awesome, thanks for sharing that. Had to watch it twice to fully appreciate the epic word smithing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holman wrote: Fiction isn't written like nonfiction, though, and technical proficiency is only the starting point.

I'm sure you're mostly right, you had given me the impression that the low output may have been due to unnatural obsession over comma placement. If the book isn't self-published though, for sure an editor goes through it. It's not common for such novels to be released riddled with grammatical errors; by and large this is what an editor will do. They are not supposed to be co-authors, and chances are the editor is not reading the text in a manner where story-line inconsistencies would be particularly noticed (although if they do, they'd probably comment on it).

One reason I don't like proofreading and revising is that every time I do so, I'll make massive changes. I can see how GRRM would not get anywhere; I can't think of anytime I proofread something I wrote and thought, "perfect." At the end of the day it seems perfect, but gremlins rearrange the bits overnight and by morning it is no longer perfect. After several days of this, it occurs to me that that day 1 was no worse than any of these revisions, just different. Since Word makes it easy to write cleanly the first time, I'm not too worried about technical flaws. I think if I was to write fiction, I would want someone who could provide honest criticism and point out logical flaws and inconsistencies before I even attempt to revise the story. And then after making corrections engage someone else to do the same (familiarity breeds contempt, after all).

While I hear what Holman is saying, hopefully he's not suggesting that GRRM is just as fast as others who write similar-length books in the same genre. Obviously each author has their own methods and pace of writing. GRRM is right at the bottom, even within his genre. That's all I was getting at. We don't have to compare expected output of fiction writers to JeffV's expected output--we can compare GRRM to Sanderson, Erikson, Abercrombie, etc.

Oh, I agree that GRRM is definitely slow. But neep-driven fiction is like that. It's baked into the genre.

Zaxxon wrote:While I hear what Holman is saying, hopefully he's not suggesting that GRRM is just as fast as others who write similar-length books in the same genre. Obviously each author has their own methods and pace of writing. GRRM is right at the bottom, even within his genre. That's all I was getting at. We don't have to compare expected output of fiction writers to JeffV's expected output--we can compare GRRM to Sanderson, Erikson, Abercrombie, etc.

Sanderson is a freaking writing machine. He's not human and therefore can't be compared to anyone else.

Malificent wrote:Sanderson is a freaking writing machine. He's not human and therefore can't be compared to anyone else.

I tend to agree, which is why I included a couple other examples.

Guardian

George RR Martin has hailed “an amazing next step in the world of books” as he announced publication of a new digital edition of A Game of Thrones, featuring “a world of additional content” and an extract from the forthcoming sixth novel in his bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter.

A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition was released on Thursday on Apple’s iBooks to mark the 20th anniversary of the epic fantasy novel’s first publication. It offers “a world of additional content”, said its publisher HarperCollins, ranging from interactive character maps to detailed annotations, character journeys and timelines, family trees and and audio clips.

It includes an extract from The Winds of Winter. HarperCollins said the excerpt had been briefly published on Martin’s website, but was now available only in the new enhanced editions.
...
The enhanced digital edition of the second novel in the series, A Clash of Kings, is scheduled for 27 October, while book three, A Storm of Swords is due on 15 December. The fourth and fifth books, A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons will follow in February and March 2017.

A HarperCollins spokesperson remained tight-lipped about a publication date for The Winds of Winter, saying only: “As yet nothing has been finalised regarding the publication … but when the book is ready, it will be announced through George’s website.”

Bumping this thread with no "real news" is just cruel.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:Bumping this thread with no "real news" is just cruel par for the course.

FTFY.