‘The Winds Of Winter’ isn’t coming. Well, at least not before season six of ‘Game of Thrones’ premieres this spring. George R.R. Martin said as much in a lengthy blog post this past Saturday. Martin apologized to fans eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series and says he has been working with HBO to ensure the series reflects the as-yet-unfinished book. Cue the outrage and the entitlement.
George R.R. Martin doesn’t “owe” anyone anything. He could walk away from the project right now. He produced a good product, and people bought it, and he’s under no obligation to continue to do so.
He works for a publishing house who agreed to publish his intellectual property. When his first book was published, he promised the publishing house another, and the contract he signed with them was based on a series of stories without a guaranteed timeframe of delivery. Since he made no such contract with you, the reader, GRRM doesn’t owe you anything. He didn’t promise readers a complete series. He didn’t even ask you to read his books. That was a gamble made by his publishers. GRRM doesn’t work for you anymore than you work for me just because you work the register at my local Wal-Mart.
The entire discussion is “why isn’t he writing” and my response is “because sometimes writers can’t write”. They cannot write. A magical duty to fans does not solve that problem. Fans do not exist when in the process of writing, which is very internal. IF Martin is at all thinking of the wants whims or needs of fans when facing the page, that can’t fail to be anything less than part of his problem. Fans are part of the writer’s career but not in any way part of the writing process, which is where Martin is currently stuck. It’s not like he can call them for help. You do not, cannot, write for fans. You write for and through characters, and characters are fickle. When you’re done writing, you hope fans enjoy it, meet them at readings etc etc… Until then, they’re not involved: it’s you, the page, and the story. True writers write, and painters paint, whether anyone reads or views their work. It is not fan service. It is instinct and story service.
That’s how he, like many authors started the journey. He wrote for himself. He wrote because he felt compelled to follow where the story led. Now everyone is yelling that they are owed, that he should write it for them. This isn’t fan-fiction, and that’s not how it works. Ask a writer to write from obligation to strangers and you get effing jingles and greeting cards.
Say you’re disappointed. Say you’re mad at the situation and feeling bereft. Completely fair. But don’t personalize it as a betrayal as if he’s your typist, don’t say you’re owed. If he felt the story pulling him, he’d be writing. THAT’s how it works. His fight is with and for the story. It has nothing to do with you.
People seem to be suggesting he’s being churlish and willful, which is astounding to me. Do they REALLY think they love and miss his characters more than he? That Martin isn’t also hoping to have the story put properly to bed? Honestly, it’s all a bit maddening to read. Suggesting writers have full control of inspiration is naive; saying they have an obligation to achieve that impossibility for and to the satisfaction of others is odious.
Ask any author struggling to pay their bills how great it is to produce stuff that no one is interested in – or any with writer’s block how great it feels to have an output of zero.
If you are one of the many bellyaching over the delay of ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ books maybe you should just wait for the official novelization of the HBO series instead.
-Dagobot
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