“Practically speaking, there can’t be more than about 250 (pages)more...1550 is the limit. Any more and the binding won’t hold.”Given that a few weeks back GRRM confirmed he was on page 1311, it appears that he's getting dangerously close to the limit.
This of course doesn't mean he's nearly finished the novel - it's not a case of "just another couple of hundred pages and it's done." If anything, this revelation creates more problems, and again hints that splitting the book in two might be necessary if GRRM goes over the limit. If for some reason the publisher is reluctant to do so (unlikely, since it would mean much more of a profit), then GRRM might end up having to go back over the novel and start removing scenes and chapters, which could be both problematic and time-consuming (and this might not even be possible, given that he's said before these pages are 'locked' and have been edited and finalised already). Ultimately, it all depends on whether he can wrap up the novel's story-arcs within the remaining amount of pages he has left. Whatever happens, fans are going to have plenty to get their teeth into when the novel is finally released.
And when that might be, GRRM naturally refused to divulge:
“I don’t do deadlines any more. I’ve been scarred too many times...Whenever I get close to a deadline, I can feel it bearing down on me. It doesn’t help. It actually hurts ..... and I wind up doing nothing.”He also touches briefly on his fans-turned-detractors:
"I get these letters from the lunatics saying, ‘You better not pull a Jordan on us'...That really angers me on a bunch of levels. One, they’re speculating about my death and two, they’re diminishing Robert Jordan’s death, who was a friend of mine, like it was some sort of trick he did to get out of doing the book...It’s pretty nasty stuff.”
7 comments:
I love your blog. Keep it up!
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I never knew that GRRM and Robert Jordan were friends. Cool!
And yeah, saying that GRRM would do "Jordans" is very demeaning for both to Martin and late Jordan and people who seriously make comments like that should go seek some professional help
Anoan, there's a scary minority on the net. I got pornographic spam mails and blog comments just because I posted a comment about GRRM's right to take his time finishing Dance on a blog (it was not even my own blog). That's the level to which those people stoop. No wonder they're also not above sending Martin hate mails and phone calls.
When it comes to GRRM there are fanatics on both sides of the discussion. Being critical of Martin does not make you an evil detractor. He has been sliding farther and farther on my personal sympathy level, yet I have never sent him any hate mails.Its easy to ridicule an entire group of people, because of a few black sheep. Oh, and Gabriele C. ( glaub nicht das wir so wenige sind)
Well said Matthaus. I've been critical of GRRM's untimeliness, not him as a person, and I believe a majority of his "detractors" are pretty much the same. Throwning all people who are critical into one group with people who send "porn spam" and lunatics is just plain irresponsible.
I meant the hate mail sending minoriy (and that one is a minority) not those who worry that Martin may have lost his grip on the plot or something.
Speculating about the death of GRRM and sending him hatemail is just ridiculous, but one can find all sorts of people on the Net.
However, I would agree that he has pulled a Jordan in one aspect - completely lost control of the plot. Jordan lost control somehwhere around book 7 where the subplots just took over and nothing really happened for several books (although he at least kept publishing them on schedule...). I hope that is not what has happened to GRRM, but it certainly seems to be a possibility.
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