The Sword and Laser discussion

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That was pretty interesting. I didn't know about the 5 year gap but I'm glad it didn't happen.

excellent interview. Thanks for the link.

One point I have to make; instead of giving interviews, GRRM should write books

You need to read this Kamil: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05..., starting with the bold text partway down.

Rick wrote: "You need to read this Kamil: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05..."


I'm just saying GRRN gives a lot of interviews

Read. The. Link.

Here, I'll quote the important part:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now.

People are not machines. Writers and artists aren't machines.


See the bold part? Whenever you start thinking you should have some say in how Martin lives his life repeat that to yourself.

Rick wrote: "Read. The. Link.

Here, I'll quote the important part:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking t..."

Yes, but I would be happy if at lerast a word a month would be written

Reread the bold part again.

Hey, I'll bet he writes at least SIX words a month!

Hey Kamil - Rick is right. GRRM is not our bitch. He can choose to lead his life however he pleases.

Meanwhile, we as readers can choose to give our attention to writers who care enough about their work and fans to spend time crafting their story to completion rather than giving a lot of interviews.

At least that is where this reader is with the Song of Fire and Ice saga. GRRM may or may not spend his time writing. I may or may not work find time to read anything from this series.


I have to wonder how damaging it is to new authors, when veteran authors of popular series to present such a casual stance on completing their work. I have so many friends who don't even want to start a series (particularly epic fantasy), until it is complete citing this very reason. If no one buys the early books, the author may not be able to afford the commitment to finish the series.

It's amusing to see that even the HBO people are starting to say "Hey, George, write more."

Here's the thing - I get Kamil's point and those of people who want GRRM to turn out the next book and the one after that. For all of the GRRM is not your bitch stuff, it does feel like he's almost consciously not working on the series but doing other things. However, remember that we only see him when he's in public. We've no idea if he's writing or not behind the scenes.

The strongest point Gaiman makes in that linked post is that art isn't something you just turn on and off and different writers write differently. On the one hand, people want to see the series finish and find out what the story is in full. On the other, people will be pissed off if he turns out subpar stuff just to finish the story.

As a reader, this is one reason I don't start series that aren't finished. Brandon Sanderson writes as fast as anyone but, while I'll finish Way of Kings, I want to see it much closer to completion before I go on (I'm also kind of skeptical that many stories actually need more than 3-4 volumes).

I guess I'll jump in as I am not much of a GRRM fan, and for a long time I wasn't sure why. Recently I came to the conclusion that a big part of it was basically the last paragraph of Rick's post.
I will add to that a couple things...1) I feel that while GRRM is probably second to none as a world builder, and is very good with character development, I don't particularly enjoy his writing style. It is a bit too much like TV writing(which I think helps make the HBO series so damn good). He has several POV characters that other than in the first book so far are basically just going about their lives, and not all coming together to advance the main plot. Peter F Hamilton has a similar style, at least with the Commonwealth and Void books, which I enjoyed. I realized the reason why I enjoyed it when Hamilton did it is that I was able to read the whole multi-book series, so even if I had to wait across multiple books for it all to come together, it least it did.
2) Art is a rather subjective term. So this is definitely my opinion, but I would say that writing doesn't make you an artist...just as reading lots of books doesn't make you a smart person. I would submit that the artistry in literature is not the writing, but the storytelling. On that front, either GRRM has a story to tell, in which case he should be able to just sit down and tell the story, no matter how long (words/time) that takes, or he is pulling a Lost where he has an idea(possibly a vague one) on how it will all end, and he is more or less meandering. If the former, then to some extent he is the reader's bitch in that he has taken their money for the first N chapters of the ASoIaF single story. If the latter, then my opinion is that it would be better off making multiple actual standalone stories in multiple books and then make another standalone story that ties them all together.
At any rate, I don't expect any author to do my bidding, but on the flipside, they also don't have the right for everyone to just shut up and be happy about it, either... it's not like he's working for free.
Anyway, with all of that said, the world he developed is so compelling that despite all that I will likely sit down and read the whole series once the whole series exists and I will probably enjoy it very much.