ADWD Release July 12th!

[C-1]

If GRRM was originally planning to announce the finishing of the book at this gathering, I’m really glad he didn’t do it. For so long he has promised us that when he was finally finished he would first go and tell his wife, and then immediately post on his site that it was done. If he doesn’t announce it that way it would feel really wrong. That promise is the main reason I have checked his website so many times in the last 5 years, and I don’t want to feel like I’m(opposite off Neil Gaman quote).

[Evil Agent]

The most frustrating part is that he was basically just as close to finishing it back in July!

He sounded really optimistic about it back then... and then everything came to a screeching halt because he went on vacation for a month, then went to Ireland for a few weeks, then came back and got sick. I honestly believe there's been very little progress in the last 6 months, and knowing how close he was to the finish line all that time has probably been driving him crazy.

[teahupoo]

The most frustrating part is that he was basically just as close to finishing it back in July!

He sounded really optimistic about it back then... and then everything came to a screeching halt because he went on vacation for a month, then went to Ireland for a few weeks, then came back and got sick. I honestly believe there's been very little progress in the last 6 months, and knowing how close he was to the finish line all that time has probably been driving him crazy.

Maybe he writes it and thinks its perfect so blogs something hinting at it being finished. A few weeks passes and the manuscript is sent back with plot errors and such. And it happens over and over.

However I think its more likely its been done for months if not years, waiting for the HBO series to be ready. I can't blame the guy for that. It is a sound publicity and financial decision.

[Slynt]

This latest attempt to find something to blame GRRM for seems a little desperate, it has to be said.

Desperate? I am not "finding something to blame him for"; I merely stated the fact that it was announced that he had a plane to catch, but he was going to that party. GRRM should be honest enough to correct it. He uses his Not A Blog to blame the disease for working less, but the doctors had no problem with him partying 'til late at night. I don't mind him partying with the BwwB, it just feels dishonest towards the readership who by now are pretty....desperate...to hear the magical words "It's done".

1. GRRM has an appointment in Hollywood immediately after the signing, so he can't hang around. He tells this to the guys at the bookstore but not the reason why (since it's confidential meeting, I would hazard a guess with HBO or maybe with the people working on the Skin Trade movie project).

2. The guys at the bookstore somehow garble this into saying that GRRM is leaving to get on a plane.

3. If GRRM heard this, I guess that, rather than go through the tedium of correcting them, the end-result that he needs to be out of there on time is the same so what the hell? If he was out back, he may not have heard them (the PR system is most shops does not feed into the back offices).

You are making up how it went down, so as an argument this doesn't work. *If* this was how it happened, GRRM could still make a proper apology on his blog, but he doesn't even mention that he did in fact go to said party.

4. He leaves on time, goes to the meeting, then meets up with other fans for a meet-up.

Trying to turn this into some grand conspiracy theory is bizarre.

It is not a conspiracy theory. I am merely calling the man out on yet another round of strange behavior. I never said he did it on purpose to anger fans - that would be a conspiracy theory.

What do you know? Today he has regained the work hours lost to the Christmas disease. Expect "It's done" sometime during the day or maybe tomorrow.

[Evil Agent]

What do you know? Today he has regained the work hours lost to the Christmas disease. Expect "It's done" sometime during the day or maybe tomorrow.

Hmm? I'm confused by your post. If you're serious, where are you getting this information?

[Slynt]

I was just thinking that he lost a week during Christmas, maybe two, making it two weeks since he became better. If he cut in half his 12 - hour days to say 6 hours that's given him 78 hours to finish "A Dance with Dragons" - maybe not enough (I know how time flies when trying to write something useful), but at least he should be so near the finish line that we should (and by should I mean wish) expect an "It's done" within the next days. Of course, this is conjecture (is that what they call it?) just like Werthead making up the story of the signing in LA, but we have been expecting with utmost patience for years and years, it is time to demand.

[Snikt5]

Slynt & Sweetmartin, consider this a warning. The purpose of this thread is more of a running news item tracking so keep the snide, petty and pedantic comments out of it.

Rob B, please try and keep this thread open. The majority of us like reading the updates and speculating and can ignore the snide comments.

[Rob B]

We want to keep this thread open, but when other members insinuate that other members are lying, and they rip apart every member's post it makes our job as mods more challenging.

[Slynt]

I hope you see that the insinuations go both ways, though.

[Werthead]

As I said before, Martin did not leave the signing to go to the party, he left to go to a meeting. The meeting appears to have involved Melinda Snodgrass (who went with GRRM to the party afterwards). From that I strongly suspect this is something to do with the Wild Cards movie script they worked on a few years ago and has apparently seen some recent renewed interest (due to both the increased interest in superhero movies and GRRM's raised profile from the HBO deal).

So that was pretty much the situation. Yeah, the store got it wrong by saying it was a plane, but the amusing thing is that if GRRM had corrected them, it would have raised the fans' hopes ("Yay! He can sign all our books after all!") and then dashed them, and GRRM would now be being criticised for that ("The jerk! Why didn't he just not say anything?"). The reason GRRM has not commented on this is that is a mind-numbingly pedantic and trivial error that would not have had any practical impact if corrected.

[Slynt]

Allright, thanks for clearing that up. Would / could any Wild Cards script be one of the two announcements GRRM talked about?

[Werthead]

Allright, thanks for clearing that up. Would / could any Wild Cards script be one of the two announcements GRRM talked about?

It's possible, though I suspect that any such discussions would be in a very early or preliminary stage. There have been multiple WC proposals over the last twenty years for movies and TV series, some by GRRM and MS together and a few more by MS by herself. The last one is about five years old. It's also possible or indeed more likely that this is related to another project, possibly The Skin Trade movie, which is in active development. MS, as a professional scriptwriter, may be GRRM's preferred writer on that project (she worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Outer Limits, amongst other shows) but nothing has been announced so far.

I assume that GRRM will at some point clear up what the two announcements were due to be. I've also heard that the new tie-in edition of AGoT should have been finalised by now but Bantam and HBO are still tweaking the final design, so it could have been that.

[dsw13]

As I said before, Martin did not leave the signing to go to the party, he left to go to a meeting. The meeting appears to have involved Melinda Snodgrass (who went with GRRM to the party afterwards).

I'm probably showing my ignorance here by having never heard of her, and I'm sure she's very well respected in her field, but Melinda Snodgrass sounds more like the name of a character from Harry Potter than a real life scriptwriter.

[Slynt]

Did GRRM mention that now he was really going to focus on ADWD to the point of not blogging, following up swiftly with two NFL posts and a link to the admittedly awesome Iron Throne teaser? How immiment is imminent?

[Loerwyn]

Did GRRM mention that now he was really going to focus on ADWD to the point of not blogging, following up swiftly with two NFL posts and a link to the admittedly awesome Iron Throne teaser? How immiment is imminent?

I suggest you go back to the quotes you gave yourself.

He said blog posts may be less frequent, he did not say he would stop blogging.