On G.R.R. Martin, Finishing Things, and Stupid Esquire Articles

Another day, and another article with a ridiculous click-bait headline is causing a ruckus in the writing and reading communities. Josh Rosenberg, writing for Esquire’s website, recently tried very hard to generate views by inventing drama out of an off-hand statement made by a 77-year-old man with an enormous amount of pressure to complete one of the most popular fantasy series of all time.

The quote in question?

"I have to write more Dunk and Egg. There’s supposed to be another Fire and Blood book, too. I do think if I can just get some of these other things off my back, I could finish The Winds of Winter pretty soon. It’s been made clear to me that Winds is the priority, but … I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for that."

I know readers don’t generally want to hear this, but writing a book is harder than most people can possibly imagine. Writing a sequel to a mildly successful book is even more difficult. Having published nearly 50 pieces of fiction by now, I can only guess at the kind of stress involved in continuing a series that has sold more than 100 million copies. Martin is a meticulous writer with a very slow pace. He also has a lot of projects in front of him that feel important and appealing.

Life is hard. Creating is hard. Sometimes people fail.
Are we supposed to live in a world where failure is never an option?

It’s fairly easy to infer from the existing A Song of Ice and Fire books and Martin’s comments about the state of The Winds of Winter that he’s opened a lot of plot threads already and is continually pursuing new characters despite the already wide scope of the series. Resolving all of these open threads in an achievable way that’s also enjoyable to read is a monumental task. Could we talk about the fact that Martin juggles too many projects with seemingly unrealistic expectations of his abilities to complete them? Sure. Could we talk about the character sprawl in ASoIaF and how it probably needs editorial oversight to be reeled back into reasonable scope? Yeah, we could. Could we talk about how politics and the general state of entertainment are affecting the ability of creatives to give themselves over to process instead of doomscrolling politics and feeling anxious all the time? Definitely.

But that’s not what’s happening in the aforementioned article where someone only had to dribble out 529 words1 in order to crank out a same-day snarky rant that’s designed to what… sell ads? Drive clicks to such culturally important articles like 11 Celebrity Sex Tapes, Ranked by Cinematic Value?Believe it or not, I’m not in the authors-don’t-owe-readers-anything camp. I think authors absolutely do owe fans their best efforts to complete popular series. In a world where your new favorite TV show has every chance of being canceled after the first series because it wasn’t exceptionally popular, we need epic creative work that manages to reach a satisfying conclusion rather than being abandoned halfway through. I’m way behind on my own book release, and even though I have only the smallest established reader base, I feel terrible about each and every delay that puts me further from getting the damn book out into the world.

But at a certain point, there needs to be at least some small understanding and sympathy for the creative process. Plenty of dedicated fans of any given series that has gone on indefinite hiatus have this empathy for the creators they love, but it shouldn’t be the minority opinion on social media and in publications like Esquire. Yeah, it sucks to read that an author like G.R.R. Martin «sometimes» isn’t in the mood to work on his unwieldy epic, but doesn’t it make sense? Do you not sometimes feel like you don’t want to do the things you love and care about? Once a creative endeavor is monetized, it becomes an entirely more complex beast.

Martin isn’t the first to struggle to continue with a successful series, and he’ll be far from the last. Do you want to know why I respect Martin more than a lot of other authors who fall into this trap? He’s communicating his reality. Much like Scott Lynch who has communicated the mental health and medication issues that have delayed his highly anticipated novel, Martin is letting us know what’s going on. He’s telling us how damn hard it is to get through this thing, and that, in my opinion, is worth a hell of a lot of respect.

Life is hard. Creating is hard. Sometimes people fail. Are we supposed to live in a world where failure is never an option? At this point, rushing to finish something that doesn’t feel right is going to produce just another piece of undercooked pap. Much of the big-budget creative world (Hollywood and the gaming industry, looking at you here) is just fine with that, but personally, I want more. I’d rather wait for great than settle for meh just to have something in my hands after a long wait.

No reasonable person is expecting The Winds of Winter to be finished. It’d be a great surprise if it was, but we’ve all known for a while that it’s most likely never going to happen. Martin is doing what Martin can, and if he’d rather work on other things at this point, I think he’s earned it. No one deserves to be chained to a desk at 77 years of age. Let the man have a little fun and write Dunk and Egg stories if he wants to.

Because unlike Josh Rosenberg, George R.R. Martin is trying to write something that matters. Something he cares about. And you know what? That can be pretty damned intimidating «sometimes». And sometimes we need to cut people a little slack.

Hope everyone has something good to read. Until next time, I’ll see you among the stacks.
Mark Feenstra