Game of Thrones
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I have it on good authority that his editor does very little, and that part of the issue with his books coming out so slowly is because his writing method involves hunt and peck typing on Wordstar, and that he meticulously edits his own writing to the point that his own editor waits eons for very few actual editing decisions.
^ Wordstar.All in all, some of us remember the blog messages about taking time out for the NFL season, about how he did so much damage to the Starks that he wrote himself into a corner, and yet he's added 8 books to his bibliography since A Dance of Dragons and had executive produced another television series (Nightflyers).
As far as I see it, the guy's fiction legacy is now competing against another product (GoT on HBO), and the HBO show has become more popular than his novels. Since the HBO show is allegedly going to have a different ending from his novels, both are ultimately going to be paired up against each other and my guess is the TV show is going to win.
If his novels suck, it would damage the TV show, which I venture he's making more money on than he stands to make from his books. He's 70, has never seen this amount of money and attention, and is definitely overweight and (per my convention friends who spent some time with him) there isn't a pizza that he doesn't like.
Verdict: He doesn't have a Brandon Sanderson lined up and he's coasting on the money while he has a chance to live it up.
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@Ghost I hadn't heard the Worstar thing. That is, uh, pretty special.
But I agree on the rest for sure. There's definitely not a lot of motivation for him.
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@insomniac7809 said in Game of Thrones:
@Sparks said in Game of Thrones:
@Snackness said in Game of Thrones:
@Sparks The Captal's Tower?
Got it in one guess.
Ask @Aria about that one...
I mean, Martin's working on a narrative that can be generously described as 'sprawling.' And yeah, he doesn't have what you'd call the strongest work ethic. (He's frequently taken breaks because he's bummed over a sports franchise or a political development. Not casting stones here, my house is spun sugar at best...)
And yeah, he feels like he's under a lot of pressure since the IP he's working on has become a defining Nerd Thing.
Dude takes his time.
Ohh, god, do not get me started on Melanie Rawn. I've been waiting for that book since I was 13. I'm going to be 35 in, like, two weeks.
I love her work. Love. I would, as I have posted in other threads, play the shit out of a Sunrunner's MU*. And I whole-heartedly agree with Neil Gaiman's sentiments about Martin not owing anyone his creative work.....
But I also don't owe artists my money. If you're going to drag things out, delay series, leave work unfinished, and then bitch about your fans, well. Sooner or later I'm going to run out of sympathy. And stop giving you my money for your other projects.
Finish your fucking books, Melanie.
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@Ghost said in Game of Thrones:
there isn't a pizza that he doesn't like.
Having helped take GRRM out for Thai food after a book signing 14 years and two books ago, I can confirm firsthand that the same is true for crab rangoon. He was a really great guy to talk to, but from a "I hope to see you live a long and healthy life" standpoint I was a little concerned to witness that he ate like my great-uncle Tommy (who had experienced about three heart attacks by that point).
Though at that dinner, GRRM mentioned that HBO had just optioned the books but that he doubted they'd ever actually put a series into production because of how many seasons it would take and how much it would cost to do right.
Looking back at that conversation now, I laugh.
@Aria said in Game of Thrones:
Ohh, god, do not get me started on Melanie Rawn. I've been waiting for that book since I was 13. I'm going to be 35 in, like, two weeks.
I know about five years ago she posted online that she'd write The Captal's Tower after she finished the fifth Glass Thorns book. Which she did in 2017. So I'm crossing my fingers that we might get a conclusion to Exiles in the next couple of years...
But yes. I am in the same boat as you. As I said, 22 years. So far, the biggest gap in the ASoIaF books has been 8 years (between the last book and now). When people complain about how long they've been waiting for GRRM to finish The Winds of Winter I want to go, "Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of waiting? Waiting is for the Exiles fans, who watch the author craft three series before finishing the trilogy. Waiting is for the long gap, when readers are born and live and die all before the third book is released..."
@Aria said in Game of Thrones:
I love her work. Love. I would, as I have posted in other threads, play the shit out of a Sunrunner's MU*.
I would also play the shit out of a Sunrunners game. I was, at one point, tempted to build a Sunrunners MU*, until I realized there were probably about five people in the entire MU*ing community who would actually play there.
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A) I remember that announcement and how terribly excited I was! And that it's been several years since without so much as a hint of news or follow-up. The last time someone started complaining about ASoIaF at my office after Googling for Exiles updates produced nothing, I may or may not have whispered a surprisingly low and guttural "You fuck right off" out loud at my desk. Thank god none of my co-workers heard me, because that would be taken very poorly at my office. >.<
B) If you ever change your mind about that, let me know. I will be largely useless, but I will follow you around making excited puppy faces at you the entire way. And forcibly drag the two other people I know who read those books, so that's at least four!
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Ok, here's one for you: I first started reading A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran 33 years ago, via WaRP Graphics. It's been restarted under various presses repeatedly. Someday, I will find out how it ends. (It may actually be finished, but it's out of print and I can't afford the copies on Amazon.)
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I would also adore a Sunrunners game. As for Captal’s Tower, I doubt we will ever see it. I just want to freaking know who the eff Collan is!
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Lol. GRRM never needs to write a single sentence again as long as he lives.
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@bored said in Game of Thrones:
@Ghost I hadn't heard the Worstar thing. That is, uh, pretty special.
But I agree on the rest for sure. There's definitely not a lot of motivation for him.
On top of that, rumour has it, he writes on an air gaped 1990s era computer, and plans to retire if it ever fails.
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@SG said in Game of Thrones:
On top of that, rumour has it, he writes on an air gaped 1990s era computer, and plans to retire if it ever fails.
The first part isn't rumor; he's outright said in interviews that he still writes on that old computer specifically because it can run WordStar. I don't know about the retirement part, though I could believe "if I can no longer find a computer that runs WordStar" would be a hard and fast condition to him for immediate retirement.
Still, I can actually understand that one.
Lots of writers have specific tools that work well for them and which they've developed their creative flow around. I know people who just write everything directly in Microsoft Word as one giant file. People who write individual chapters in Word as separate files (like my late writing mentor). People who swear by Scrivener and find it hard to really work in other text editors for writing fiction (hi, it me). Even people—very, very strange people—who write everything in raw LaTeX, and probably should look into some sort of therapy.
I personally write most stuff in Scrivener, because it fits my flow; I can keep all my notes and worldbuilding in the same file, I can tie it into Aeon Timeline to keep time straight in things, etc. And sometimes I get stuck; when that happens, I find I can get myself moving again if I go write longhand with a fountain pen for a while; it gets me out of my own head and into a different mental space than typing on a computer does.
When someone's writing routine is disrupted, it can really make it hard for them, though. There was a point where I tried writing a story in Word instead of Scrivener because it was all I had installed on that particular computer, and I just floundered. I know perfectly well how to use Word, but while it was open my brain was stuck in 'documents for work' mode rather than 'I am writing a story' mode and I just could not make the words come to me.
GRRM has been using WordStar since like the late 1980's, I think. So I can understand that with that much muscle memory for keystrokes and all, trying to move his writing process to a different program might very well feel almost impossible.
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Double-post, whee!
@reimesu said in Game of Thrones:
Ok, here's one for you: I first started reading A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran 33 years ago, via WaRP Graphics. It's been restarted under various presses repeatedly. Someday, I will find out how it ends. (It may actually be finished, but it's out of print and I can't afford the copies on Amazon.)
FWIW, A Distant Soil is not done yet, but I think the final 8 issues of the comic are supposedly coming out from Image sometime this year? And last I checked the whole thing so far was also available in digital comics form, for whatever that's worth.
And speaking of old comics that readers have been waiting to finish for years, I'm so glad that Mark Oakley is slowly getting back to Thieves & Kings again. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Stardrop and Jenny Mysterious too, but T&K will always be far nearer and dearer to my heart than his other comics, and we were left on a cliffhanger for like... 14-ish years of the 25 years the comic has existed, I think? Regardless, also still a longer wait than with GRRM and the latest ASoIaF book so far.
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Holy shit, now we have to wait a week for the next episode?!
<hype intensifies>
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This might contain some spoilers. I think the entire thread might be spoiler-y in general so my only request here is to keep them out of it for at least a day after the latest episode airs to give people a chance to watch it.
... But damn the series, which at times has had its faults, is starting to spend the capital it's been building for years, and it's a glorious thing. Game of Thrones always succeeded on the strengths of its secondary characters; sure, there was some undead army in the north constantly ready to kill everyone and there were some badass Big Names clearly meant to be the protagonists (or villains) but the rest of the cast was where most people seem to be picking favorites from.
And the series has done an incredible job developing them. Jaime Lannister - a guy who in the show's first thirty minutes was caught fucking his married sister by an underage kid and threw said kid out of a window, crippling him. A guy who even later on threatened a baby's father to catapult the baby over a besieged fort if it meant he could get back to that same sister. On every other show he'd have been just a mustache-twirling villain and somehow eight years later he's a tragic, heroic figure, the kind who in this cynical, dark setting that laughs at noble deeds (and he had himself, often) picks up a lance from the ground and charges at a full grown dragon mounted on a steed.
Then that scene from last week's episode. Everyone pretty much acknowledges openly they are about to die, it's generally understood it's the last time all these supporting characters will ever have a drink together... yet the most cliche trope of bestowing honor brings them all to their feet. It's the kind of thing a few seasons ago would have been done to subvert it and now it lent emotional weight to the entire episode which ended up revolving around it.
This is pretty special. I'll miss this damn show when it's over.
Good thing George Martin is putting all those books out soon!
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I'm really enjoying the season but WHY does the show insist on trying to get me to find Tormund's behavior towards Brienne endearing or comedic???
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@Roz
A buddy of mine I used to MU with (now retired from the hobby alas) commented on Tormund after the ep and said he's 'That Guy constantly hitting +where to see when Brienne's out in public' which seemed...apt. -
@Roz said in Game of Thrones:
I'm really enjoying the season but WHY does the show insist on trying to get me to find Tormund's behavior towards Brienne endearing or comedic???
I think it's 90% fan service. My guess is they didn't expect the relationship (?) to blow up in memes or the actor playing Tormund to become so popular on the internet - otherwise he really isn't that interesting a character. Brienne is literally the only plotline he has left, else I'd expect him to have been killed or not get a lot of screen time by now.
But yeah, he's totally creeping on her.
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@Roz said in Game of Thrones:
I'm really enjoying the season but WHY does the show insist on trying to get me to find Tormund's behavior towards Brienne endearing or comedic???
Sort of amusingly and I guess unsurprisingly, I view the season as pretty much lazy writing that's coasting on the capital built up from when the show was sticking more closely to the books. But I'll be damned if I don't ship the hell out of Tormund and Brienne.
He's just such an amazing idiot.
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@Sparks I would also play the hell out of a Sunrunners setting, oh my god are you kidding me.
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@Caryatid You made me google "sunriders ice and fire" just now thinking I was missing some kind of Old Valyria reference. Shame on you!