George R.R. Martin's Progress on The Winds of Winter: A Pessimist's History

Many people wonder how it is possible that 11 years have passed and we have no Winds. Is George a liar? Is he throwing stuff out? No....he just only wrote during COVID. Here is a brief history of what GRRM has said on his progress on the Winds of Winter.

*In the video, I say 11 chapters were cut from Dance, its actually 12. I forgot to mention the Forsaken despite having a visual for it.

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[Marshal_Dunnik]

How convinient that 2 years later, this video is still relevant and requires no updates

[TalysAlankil]

honestly the idea of George being out there like "yes i can definitely get this done before the show catches up", failing to meet that deadline, and just spiraling and giving up after that? biggest possible mood

[betterinsodapop]

House Stark was wrong. Winter is never coming.

[oliverdellabosca]

I remember in 2013 I went to my school library and asked them that when they get a copy that I'll be first in queue to take it home. Oh how much of a sweet summer child I was.

[erikhuerta]

A Song of Ice and Fire went from being George's passion, to George's biggest burden.

[Marshmellow]

The problem with the gardener method as he calls it, is eventually you need to reap what you’ve sown. He’s spent five books planting seeds and has two books left to reap them.

[MegaLickitung]

Whenever I feel like a really bad procrastinator I remind myself that GRRM thought he would have the TWOW done in 2015 and it makes me feel better about myself.

[idiotsmonthly]

Little do we know that George actually has written 2100 words a day for 11 years--The Winds of Winter, volumes 1-21. They are, of course, "one book" merely split into 21 parts--covering the next 2 weeks after Jon's stabbing, and featuring 306 POV, many of whom are horses. The reason he hasn't released anything is, of course, because the book is not technically done--only volumes 1-20 are done. Volume 21 may be finished later this year, though, so here's hoping.

This is why he fells sorry for us. We have no idea the bombshell that's about to be dropped.

[garak]

GRRM reminds me of a former friend in university who just couldn't write his final thesis.
Had good grades the whole time there but as soon as he was asked to organize his own stuff and work independantly he completely folded. It took him 3 and a half years to write a thesis that should take 3 months. At some point we were telling him to just write anything on a piece of paper and just send it in to get a mediocre grade and be done.
In the end he had a barely passing grade that he honestly could have achieved in 2 months of doing stuff. All of that for a thesis that no one will ever read anyway.
At some point, you have to let go of your perfectionism. Getting paralized by fear and not doing achieving anything is way worse than having sub optimal outcome on something.

[dredhead]

the fact that he successfully marketed leftover/cut material from Dance as progress on Winds for years is actually kind of impressive. Infuriating to the point of being insulting, but still somewhat impressive

[pj]

GRRM has being a struggling jobbing writer for most of his life, taking the opportunities that come his way with his eyes on the future when he can finally write at his own pace without worrying about money. Becoming famous for GoT gave him the freedom and money he wanted but he’s lost all drive, there’s no wolf at the door forcing him forward. I’m glad for him that he finally has the recognition and wealth he deserves but I can’t help but wish ASoIaF had been finished before the show was proposed.

[pyropulseIXXI]

I read the books during fall of 2016 and was so hyped for _The Winds of Winter;_ thought I barely had any waiting to do, and I was thinking, "Damn, those peeps that have been waiting for the next book since 2011 have been waiting literal _ages!_ I cannot imagine what that would be like."

Cut to 2022... and I can easily imagine what that would be like!

[new-mkce]

My theory is that GRRM lied to us and he's actually writing Dream now and he's finishing it first so he can drop the two books at once. MAX COPIUM

[elEvan]

2 key things to know about GRRM: he loves to explore, and he's undisciplined.

he calls himself a gardener, and he loves planting new seeds. the thing is that he just planted and planted and now this is just a massive labyrinth of wild threads. remember, this was supposed to be a very contained story about the Starks and Lannisters.

what makes his perspective and story telling great is that he examines complexity and moral ambiguity in such depth. but when nothing is black and white, there will always be a new avenue to explore.

the 5 year gap was supposed to shear down these plants he grew

[alexiavya]

it is absurd how you were exactly on the money with this. George really came out and confirmed half a year later that this is the pace he has been taking with writing the book

[aGameScout]

Thank you, this was a hugely helpful perspective and finally made the 2015 "months away" comments make sense. For years, George had a somewhat hard deadline of at least publishing Winds of Winter before Game of Thrones surpassed the books. It sounds like he simply procrastinated and convinced himself he could theoretically finish it in a few months if he just focused on the writing and nothing else. Then, when he finally had no time left to procrastinate before season 6, he sat down to start to try and do it and quickly realized he couldn't keep up the frantic pace necessary to finish it on time, and the stuff he was writing was rushed and not satisfactory. So he gave up, and with his one hard deadline gone, he could get away with procrastinating again for a few more years. Then Covid came and he had no excuses left or anything else to do so he finally worked on it a bit, but now he's back to procrastinating. So it's pointless to try and ascribe a "pace" at which he's working on because pace doesn't matter when you're procrastinating.

[franklyn]

He woke up on a seventh day of a seventh month in 2027, but then he realised... he realised that it wasn't 2027. All of a sudden it was 2007. He felt weird, all of his memories stayed the same but his body was 20 years younger. With the knowledge he had George was able to finish ADWD by 2008, and he published TWOW by 2014. It is now 2017 and popular TV show GOT is on its 9th season. People all around the world are waiting for 2018 when GRRM is going to publish ADOS and more patiently for 2019 when 10th and final season of GOT will arrive. And there is even talk of 2022 HOTD prequel show adapted from F&B and B&F and 2024 prequel show adapted from his 10 Dunk and Egg books. Life is good in that universe

[traviscue]

It's not a distraction, he's intentionally avoiding it. I wonder if he has massive writers block and has no idea where to go.. like 11 years.. that's insane. He clearly loves the universe. And this series isn't as easy as writing a history boom

[NightmaresinParadise]

“i hope this explanation was interesting and not too depressing” preston this video makes me more hopeful that the book will be finished than i’ve felt in years

[peanuts_ma]

He'll never finish. Either he's lost the motivation to do so. Or he's lost. He's created a world with a massive backstory covering thousands of years, hundreds of characters, numerous plots and sub-plots, and probably has to go back and reference plot points from previous novels. He also has to take into account what the show did with his work. Maybe he's got some sort of system to keep track of all that stuff. But if it's taken this long to get halfway through a 1000 page book, then I doubt he'll finish any time soon.

I also wouldn't rule out a catastrophe. He might have lost the draft and cannot remember what he wrote. Imagine starting over from scratch. Take into account his age, stamina, and the feeling he cannot top the last novel, then you've got a recipe for disaster. He's also preoccupied with other projects.