Why George Martin owes us the rest of the series
I guess I have the extraordinary luck to have bought Books I-IV this late in the process, because A Feast for Crows took 5 years to write. (And it was a truly awful book, especially after the second read. The worst part is it hardly advances the overall storyline. It's about people doing nothing.) When I bought the first book, I had an expectation that the series would eventually be completed. It's like George Martin and I shook hands - I would buy "Book I," in the expectation that there will be a final "Book VII."
At the end of "A Feast for Crows," is an afterword explaining that A Dance with Dragons will be out shortly, because it is made up of material cut from AFFC due to length.
The fact is, George Martin expends all of his PR energy avoiding questions about A Dance With Dragons and instead, publishes information about how much he likes football, and the new stuff he has for sale. In fact, a LOT of stuff for sale.
After reading this blog for a while, I've decided to stop, because there's no point in doing it. He basically flaunts the fact that he is doing everything EXCEPT writing.
I can see why the fans are pissed at him: he uses his blog to sell stuff and doesn't answer questions about the book; in fact, the blog really doesn't show an interest in ASOIAF at all except for the fact that he wants to sell miniatures and replica swords.
A while back, Martin made a post saying that his book has hit over 1100 pages in manuscript. If you divide that over 5 years, that means he has written approximately one and a half pages per day. All this for a book that he has said previously was basically finished, and should be out a year after AFFC.
So if Martin isn't working on ADWD, then surely he's busy with other things, right? Here's his accomplishments for 2009/early 2010:
1) Finished editing Songs of the Dying Earth, which doesn't actually include original Martin material.
2) Finished editing Suicide Kings, which again, doesn't include any original Martin material (as is the case with most Wild Cards books).
3) Finished a short story for the Warriors anthology.
4) Complimented Phipps for their tasty chili con queso on his blog. http://grrm.livejournal.com/85606.html
I have worked in a publishing house, and editors are expected to finish working on three titles in far, far less time than a year. So where did the other time go? Well, presumably writing the book that's already "essentially finished," but that's not the case. From reading his posts, he travelled for most of 2009, between following the TV crew around and attending seemingly every convention known to man.
And then there's the way he sells garbage 24/7 on his blog. Seriously, George? I have never seen an author try to pawn their own books to their fans. And not only that, but the prices for nearly everything are jacked up on his blog. Do you honestly expect us to buy Windhaven for $30 just because it's signed, when I can get it for thirty-one cents on Amazon? http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0553577905/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265321460&sr=8-1&condition=used
Recently George yelled at his fans (not uncommon if you look through the blog's history) for misinterpreting the following post as an announcement that ADWD is finished:http://grrm.livejournal.com/130165.html Oh. I guess it'd be dumb to think that posting the cover of your book and saying "nuff said" means the book's finished. George lashed out with this: http://grrm.livejournal.com/130504.html Oh, sorry George. We really thought you WERE the Oracle at Delphi. Thanks for clearing that up.
Another thing - George has said that he does not write when he travels. Well, good thing he doesn't travel much, right? WRONG. A lot of his posts talk about what convention he's going to next, and how he's not going to answer questions from the unwashed masses about ADWD. Oh, ok.
Anyway, at this point, I'm not sure I'm even looking forward to ADWD. If success and a lack of interest in the series (in favor of hobbies and selling junk) is what contributed to the dross that is AFFC, I can bet that ADWD will not be that good either.