This is not a zero-sum game.

[mizkit]

Man, the whole topic of discussion regarding books being late (where GRRM is the flagship of reader bitterness) just won’t go away. So having resisted for several days, I can’t resist anymore, although I trust I’ll be preaching to the choir. Nor, mind you, do I have anything very profound to say, except books, despite a writer’s best intentions,

Comments

[suricattus]

Amen.

I only handed a book in late once (and I was in the middle of a heart-wrenching divorce) but the current one (Pack of Lies) looks like it's going to be balky and I've alerted the troops already. Hate hate HATE being late, for all the reasons you mention, and more. Also, by the time we're finally done with the balky late book, we are so TIRED of it we want to cry.

M'editor talked about sending Flesh & Fire to GRRM for possible blurbing, and my first thought was "I don't want to be the target of fan ire, if they find out he's reading my manuscript instead of working on his own..."

[autopope]

Yup.

I think I hit burn-out last month, 80% of the way through book #6 of a series. Luckily a sensible friend said "throw it at your editor and ask his advice", which I proceeded to do. (I'm now waiting on the advice.) But digging on alone for months on end is just about the most draining, tiring job I've ever had.

[eldestmuse]

The only time I've ever been bitter and angry about an author being late/etc on a manuscript was when the publiblication date of the final book in a trilogy, after the 2nd book ended in a cliffhanger, kept getting pushed back, and back, and back... until I finally googled it and found that even though amazon listed it as due out any month, the author stated that she had pretty much no intention of writing it.

I think that's poor form and even less professional. But missed deadlines happen. Even authors can over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate issues that will crop up.

[mizkit]

At a guess, the book you were waiting for is the third of Melanie Rawn's Exiles trilogy. If so, I have the very vague impression that something fairly devastating happened in the process of that trilogy, and every ball in the world got dropped. I ended up with the idea that things had been so bad around that time she simply didn't want to have to go back anywhere near even the writing she did then....

[eldestmuse]

You are correct.

You probably know more about the situation than I do, but from the googling around and reading of the fanclubs and websites and forums, the impression that I got was more along the lines of she hated reading her own writing and the world was too complex for her to write cohesively in the world relying on memory. I remember one of the comments on the forums around that time being along the lines of "The readers would have to do all of the research."

I'm willing to believe personal issues making it painful for her to write the third book, but I still think it's unprofessional.

If it hadn't been a cliffhanger I probably wouldn't be so bitter, but the first book hadn't been a cliffhanger... and if the series hadn't been so brilliant up until that point. And unfortunately, I've never been a big fan of her other series so I don't even have that comfort.

[mizkit]

Could be I'm wrong, too. I met her once in passing and the disaster thing was kind of the impression I got, though. And I /can/ see where a complex world like that would be very difficult to go back to even there weren't potentially unpleasant associations.

Anyway, I happen to share your dismay over that particular series, because it was wonderful, and I would really like to have read the last book, too. Moop. :)

[kevenn]

As I learned trying to get my last cover that I did in on time - art takes time, especially if it's going to be good. You can't always make a dealine, but the important thing is that it's good when it finally gets released.

Good luck! :D

[dancinghorse]

Fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five years ago, they were screaming in the fanzines and at the cons.

Ask the old hands about The Last Dangerous Visions sometime--but bring a spit shield and earplugs.

[agrimony]

I rarely ever read GRRM's press (or his blog or other blogs about his writing or whatever) precisely because I know it will always be 17 years between books and I don't feel the need to torture myself with the hope cycle 'It's almost done! No it's not! Yes it is! No it's not!'. It happens. I recognize that writing is not a science and sometimes you think you've got it and you're steaming along and a penny on the track derails you.

On the other hand, I worry, because he's not exactly a spring chicken and I would like to read the whole series before it has to be written by ghost writers. :) Which is not to imply that he /owes/ me anything, or anything of the sort. Just... I really enjoy the series and I'm dubious that another writer could do it equal justice.

P.S. I don't /really/ think he's going to drop dead at any second. He's younger than my dad!

[mizkit]

Well, on the positive side, 1. I don't think ASoIaF is going to be as long as the Wheel of Time series, and 2. GRRM has not, thank God, been diagnosed with an improbably rare form of blood cancer. I think he'll finish the series. :)

[agrimony]

Hee! True!

Luckily, I never read the Wheel of Time series, so I can be unscathed by that experience. :)

[ghibbitude]

WoT would have been great if his editor was as grueling as yours. I don't need 50 pages of flower prose about a field of grass.