History Of The NAB: 2007

Welcome back to the History of the NAB series 2007!  In anticipation of the newest addition of NAB History, which will be complete in early July, I’m going to frequently repost each prior edition here is 2005 and 2006. For those that don’t know I have painstakingly went through each and every post by George R. R. Martin, line by line, and offered my opinion when appropriate. Why you may ask? To show that people DO have a reason for being upset and impatient. I always provide the date and title of his post, so if you think I’m misquoting George you can easily go search and find out yourself; however, I do provide links from time to time. Thanks for reading and I hope you find this to be an interesting and entertaining read.

Last we heard George was hoping that he’d have A Dance with Dragons completed by the end of 2006; however, he missed that deadline by just a hair.  I know the suspense is killing you!  Did he finish the book in 2007, your asking yourself?  Lets find out!

January 1st, 2007

SUBWAY SUPERBOWL!!!

It just wouldn’t be a new year without the obligatory football post borified by George…. Yes I know there is no such word as borified….I made it up…

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January 5th, 2007

Gleep

“Gleep” is a word from my distant past, from my college days in the chess club at Northwestern University. It’s what you say when you suddenly realize that you have have just made a very bad move,

I like my invented word better.

I hadn’t uttered a “gleep” in decades, but one escaped my lips this morning, when I sat down and logged on to AOL and suffered some sort of strange computer hiccup… after which, suddenly, my Personal Filing Cabinet and Favorite Places were both completely empty.

That hiccup by the way is what happens when you hit the delete button.  Didn’t feel like reading emails today, huh?

Lest anyone have a heart attack, let me hasten to add that this has NOT affected A DANCE WITH DRAGONS or any of my other work-in-progress. I do my writing on a completely different computer than the one I use for email and the internet, in part to guard against viruses, worms, and nightmares like this. My work machine does not even use Windows (which I loathe). I write with WordStar 4.0 on a pure DOS-based machine. Mock if you must… but WordStar and DOS are both stable as rocks, and never give me the sort of headaches I get from Windows. (I won’t even talk about Microsoft Word, about which I have nothing printable to say).

Judging by some of the comments on this site, some people are skeptical whether or not you’ve actually started aDwD, so excuse me if I don’t slit my throat and run out into oncoming traffic.

I suppose, if I can’t fix this, I could try to look at it as a sort of liberation. Last night I had more than three thousand emails awaiting answers. This morning I have none

2,999 emails asking about aDwD, and 1 by hippy-Ran asking about the next Wild Card novel….

eltanin wrote: Wonderful!

DOS-based word processing is so much kinder than Windoze-based. No whistles and bells – just a blank slate and your imagination…

I love this quote because it almost appears that she’s comparing DOS with GRRM’s imagination.  A blank slate.

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January 6th, 2007

Oh, the Humanity!

Well, I spent several hours on the phone yesterday, talking with my local computer guru, my Australian computer guru, and two different service consultants at AOL

So you can read 3,000 emails asking when ADWD will be done?

In a way this is a sort of liberation, as I said in my last post here… but it still has me bummed out. Every time I think I have started to put it behind me, I remember another particular bit of email — incoming, out-going, or waiting to be finished

Wait a second! Wait a freakin’ second!! You can’t even finish writing an email!!!

I am doing a lot of thinking, however.

Oh please.  Tell me what your thinking…

I have to make some serious changes in the ways I handle email.

Let me guess, are you going to hire someone to read your emails, so it’ll free up more time for you to finish writing emails?

s traumatic as this loss has been, it was ridiculous that I ever allowed myself to get into a position where I HAD more than three thousand unanswered emails in my filing cabinet. Some of them dated as far back as 1998

You have 9 years of unanswered emails? Oh please don’t tell me answering emails has been your top priority these past several years!

On the bright side he isn’t ignoring your emails because he doesn’t answer anyones emails.

Of course, I shouldn’t give the impression that all of the mails I lost were fan letters. Far from it. I also had personal correspondence in there, hobby stuff, and lots and lots of business emails.

Ahhh miniatures, football, Wild Cards, convention updates, you know the real important stuff.

neowritersblock wrote: I find it very moving, and in some ways reaffirming, how concerned about something as simple and mundane as fanmail you are. The fact that a famous author with a busy life can still take time to answer even a few of the letters is a good thing as is the concern for those left unanswered.

Is this guy delusional or what?  He has 9 years of unanswered emails!  If you have 9 years of unanswered emails you didn’t take the time to answer them!

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January 9th, 2007

Pyrrhic Victory

The good news is, I finally managed to recover my emails

Thank God! Now you can get back to not answering them.

I remain resolved to change the way I handle these things. For starts, I am going to clean out all these thousands of unanswered fan mails.

Did I just enter into the Twilight Zone?  Because I swear that I just got done reading how guilty he was for not answering all your fan mail.  Now after spending all that time to get his emails back he deletes them? Excuse my while I go bang my head up against the wall.

Let’s face it, if the letter has been sitting in my queue since 2001 and I haven’t gotten around to giving it the thoughtful, substantive answer it deserved, I will probably never get around to it.

Took him 9 years took figure that out. Remember what eltanin wrote about DOS and GRRM’s imagination?  She totally deserves to be banned from the NAB for such a mean post.  I’d email George with my recommendation but he’d delete it, spend three days trying to recover it, so he could delete it again.

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January 10th, 2007

Short and Cryptic

The Giants did not fire Tom Coughlin. Instead they gave him a one-year extension, to ensure “stability” and prevent him from being a lame duck.

*yawn* I love football too, but I can read this anywhere.  I’m on the internet!

On other fronts… there has been some exciting news this week, but I can’t talk about it yet. Do keep an eye on my news page, however. Big announcement coming soon.

I’m so excited because I just know he’s going to be announcing that ADWD is complete!!!!!!!

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January 15th, 2007

More Football

Here’s a suggestion for all those complaining about my football posts — DON’T READ THEM.

But I’m waiting for the big announcement George.

That’s what I do, when I visit the Live Journal of one of my Friends and discover that the latest post concerns something that doesn’t interest me. I don’t feel the need to add a comment berating them just because their interests are not my interests.

This is my Not A Blog, and I’ll post about whatever the hell I want, thank you.

Hmmmm.  We’re not exactly BFF, George. I’m waiting for your “Big Announcement”, and now your mad because I’m excited and all you want to talk about is something I can find on any sports site?

Pizza Crawl

Now, this journal entry is mostly intended for readers from Connecticut. If you’re not from Connecticut, there’s probably not going to be a lot here to interest you, so go and talk amongst yourselves.

But don’t get off topic because George will get upset and ban you.

You’ve all heard of pub crawls. Well, I’m up for a pizza crawl

Raise your hand if this surprises you.

If any of my Connecticut readers want to join us for a slice or three… hey, the more the merrier, I always say.

I’m so excited I get to eat pizza with GRRM!!!

Who’s game for a pizza crawl?

Me, me, me,me!!!

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January 17th, 2007

HBO Options A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE

Yes, this is the Big News that I have been hinting at.

No, the Big News was not the pizza crawl, or the delivery of the new WILD CARDS book, though of course I’m excited about those as well.

Oh this is depressing.  I was hoping HBO was going to option WILD CARDS, and use miniatures instead of actors.

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January 25th, 2007

Back to Pizza

We do need to get a better notion of whether there are going to be ten of us, twenty, fifty, or a hundred (too many, I fear, and we may have logistical problems).

What do you mean? This is your event you started this event you take care of the problems.

We could also use a volunteer on location in New Haven to help coordinate all this, someone to double check that all the pizza places are open, make reservations where reservations are accepted, and generally get our ducks in a row.

I nominate GRRM to be the volunteer, so I can eat pizza!! That’s why I’m going after all.

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February 12th, 2007

Pizza Crawl: Final Schedule

The pizza crawl is only a week away, so it is time we nailed down our plans.

You’re volunteering right?

blah,blah,blah

I said blah, not George….

A few final comments. If you’re coming on the crawl, dress warmly and wear comfortable shoes. We may be walking, and there may be a lot of waiting in line..

What are you a member of the  fashion police now?

Also, please, BRING CASH.

Your not going to try and sell me miniatures are you?

We will have to pay for these pizzas, after all, and the pizzerias aren’t going to want to do separate checks for fifty, or handle twenty different people tossing in credit cards.

What are you fucking stupid, why would you make this so difficult? That’s their job!  If they want their money they’ll take whatever we give them.

And speaking of that bill… my experience with large groups is that things tend to go much better if everyone just pays an equal share. So if you’re one of these “oh, I didn’t have a coke, and I only had one slice, but he had two, so my share is two bucks less” people, be warned… that kind of stuff drives me buggy.

That’s why I prefer to pay for my own food on my own bill, so I’m not paying for everyone else’s. I don’t know these people after all.

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February 20th, 2007

the best laid plans

I am going to have to cancel out on the pizza crawl.

But all you’ve been posting about this past month has been this pizza crawl.

I’ve spent the last day and a half running between my bed and the bathroom.

That was probably a little too much info, however if I had to read that….you do too!  On a side note, it seems pretty obvious that he was stressing out about this and decided not to do it.  I can’t blame him either because the way he set this up it would’ve been a disaster.  He should’ve  had everyone pay for their own food.  Problem solved.  His need to micromanage everything ruined a good idea because there’s not a business around that wouldn’t want an international bestseller eating at their establishment, nor would they mind a line out their front door!

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March 7th, 2007

ICE & FIRE role playing game

I have reached a final settlement with Guardians of Order, the Canadian games company that published the role-playing game based on A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE before going under last year.

Not that big of a seller..huh?

As part of our settlement, I have acquired the remaining stock of the deluxe, limited edition of the RPG worldbook, a huge and lavishly illustrated hardcover. I will be listing the book for sale on the “Signed Books” page of my website in the very near future, but I thought I’d give my Not-a-Bloggers a little advance notice.

Whatever you do, DO NOT STORE THESE IN YOUR HOUSE!  Because you never know when your roof will collapse during a huge rainstorm, ruining all of them!

If any of you want to snag a copy, the price is $100, which includes book rate shipping within the United States (overseas is more).

A $100!!! They went out of business!!! How fun could this game be?

(Please email if you are interested, don’t comment about it here).

Didn’t you just have 9 years of unanswered emails a little while back?

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March 17th, 2007

Spinoffs, Subrights, Secrets

One of the cool things about the success of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is that it has given birth to all sorts of fun spinoffs — card games, board games, t-shirts, miniatures, maybe even a television series. Other stuff, too. But I can’t talk about that.

Lets make that the golden rule of the NAB.  Don’t talk about those things.

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March 20th, 2007

Nothing Holds an Edge Like Valyrian Steel

I’m pleased and excited to announce that I’ve signed a deal with Jalic, Inc of East Lansing, Michigan, granting them a license to manufacture and sell full-sized high-quality replicas of the arms and armor from A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

Hey!  Can he produce a replica copy of ADWD? I’d actually buy that!

I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am.

*yawn*

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April 21st, 2007

a good day’s dancing

It was the most productive day I’ve had in months, at least where DANCE is concerned (I have had very productive days working on the WILD CARDS, dealing with contracts and subrights, approving artwork and design and giving notes about some of the spinoff projects, and the like, but that’s a different thing).

Wouldn’t want to miss out on the next Wild Cards…

One thing that helped that happen was that yesterday, for whatever reason, the world left me alone. The phone never rang. No one came knocking on my doors. None of my friends dropped in unexpectedly. I had no doctor’s appointments, no dinner dates, nothing on my calendar but work.

I need more days like this. Lots more days like this. That’s how DANCE will get done.

So the only thing that needs to happen is the world has to stop spinning, and the stars to align, and as long as those two things happen we’ll get ADWD in record time.

In the past, though, one good day does often lead to another, and another, and another. So you’ll have to excuse me, friends. I’m going back to Westeros…

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April 27th, 2007

this and that and t’other thing

Unfortunately, the last two days have been less productive, at least for DANCE.

Damn stars.

I will probably post some thoughts and comments here after the Saturday selections, so those of you who like football should check back then… and those of you who don’t want to read anything but DANCE WITH DRAGONS news should stay away.

Yeah because when I want to know something about the NFL this is my first and last stop.

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June 25th, 2007

The Only Living Boy in New York.

It’s been too long since I last posted here, but I have a good excuse. Parris has been off in Ireland since June 6, and I have been trying to take advantage of the (comparative) isolation to get some serious work done on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. I’ve only been partially successful there.

For those of you who don’t speak Martineese as fluently as I do…let me translate for you…. I wrote a lot of Garbage while Parris was away, so I thought I’d let you guys know!

… there’s no way around it, DANCE is simply coming more slowly than me, my editors, or my readers would like.

Maybe you should organize another one of those famous Pizza Crawls that you did before, maybe that would help you along! Oh wait, Pizza, George R.R. Martin running to the bathroom. Golden Rule #2 Let’s never talk about pizza ever again?

A year ago, it would never have dawned on me that DANCE would not be done by the time the Japanese worldcon rolled around, but that’s looking like a very real possibility now.

Perhaps I can help you out here.  Maybe if you didn’t spend a month trying to retrieve emails that your just going to delete anyways, organize pizza crawls that your not going to attend, and put off all the other frivolous stuff you’d have more time to write… Does that help any?

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June 28th, 2007

a new deal for WILD CARDS

And yeah, yeah, I know this post will probably infuriate those “fans” of mine who would prefer that I work on A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE all day, every day, to the exclusion of everything else… but I’ve grown used to that by now. Sorry, guys. I’m working on DANCE, as I’ve reported, but I have other projects too

When you update us you tell us everything you wrote sucks. I wonder why it all sucks?

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July 11th, 2007

Back from Indianapolis

I had a reading at the convention, and decided to read the newly-completed prologue from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

Does it suck?

I’ve been struggling with this particular chapter off and on for years (not continuously, of course, when a chapter gives me as much trouble as this one has, I tend to put it aside, move on and write something else, and come back to it later with fresh eyes), writing and rewriting it, moving chunks of it around, trying different structures.

That doesn’t sound like a very organized way of doing things.

There’s a lot of flashbacks in the chapter — not just one flashback, but more like four, each to a different time in the viewpoint character’s life — and integrating those with each other and with the present action has proved to be a bitch and a half.

You make A DANCE WITH DRAGONS sound so disastrous, an absolute clusterfuck, a piece of shit…

I have always found convention readings to be very valuable, especially when I’m doing a chapter than I’ve never read before. No matter how many times you go over your work on a computer screen, somehow mistakes still slip past you… but when you’re reading aloud, they leap right up into your face, screaming and spraying spittle.

You make yourself sound so sophisticated.

And sometimes you see bigger problems too, as I did in this case. The audience seemed to like the chapter well enough, which pleased me. I talked to some of the BWB about it afterward, and was glad to hear that it mostly worked. There are still problems, though.

Everyone liked it so obviously the next step is to rewrite it.

This, by the way, is the quandary that every writer faces on every book. When is a chapter really done? When is it good enough?

Ahhhh… When everyone likes it?

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July 17th, 2007

Busy Week

I’ve been working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS too. Just finished revising the prologue a few hours ago. As I mentioned last post, after reading it at the Indianapolis convention, there were aspects of it that I was not happy with. The new version is a page shorter and much stronger, I think, with a better flow and crisper transitions. I also punched up one element that somehow had gotten lost before… but it was an important element

The prologue that everyone liked.   The prologue with 4 flashbacks, and is now shorter, crisper, and now has more information.  I’m losing faith.

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August 13th, 2007

Ice & Fire miniatures

I’ve got a new deal in place, this time with DARK SWORD MINIATURES, who will be showing the first batch of figures at GenCon

Yeah.  Admit it you’ve been wondering when he would start hawking miniatures.

I am, however, getting bloody sick of all the off-topic comments, and the trolls who use any LJ post of mine, regardless of subject, as another excuse to slam me about DANCE being late. I can’t stop you from posting such comments, of course… but I can and will remove ‘em, and ban the posters. LJ makes that pretty easy, I’m glad to say. And life is too short to deal with trolls.

He wonders where all the fan anger comes from.  He call fans who are frustrated trolls!  Then says that life is too short to deal with the fans who he’s just demagogued.

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August 16th, 2007

Wild Cards RPG

Yeah, you can buy one of these too.

fidesfortuna wrote: Hey take your time George with the Book. Like I tell my shop guys a little extra work produces a better product.

cka144 wrote: Hello

Hi, I’ve never posted here before, and I by no means wish to slam you or anything, but I was wondering if you have a rough estimate of when Dance will be out? Just curious and eager to read it

Could she possibly be more polite in asking? She got a response.

parrismcb wrote: it will be done

when it is done.

When it is done, George will post announcements on his web site, this LJ and it will spread to the message boards and ripple outward.

Until then, don’t expect updates on progress on DANCE.

That was kind of rude.

psamathos wrote: Dancy Dance!

I <3 GRRM!!!!

I don’t care if DANCE takes 15 years, you always do such a good job and I trust you!

How funny is that? I wonder if they’ve changed their mind in the last 3 years?

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August 29th, 2007

A Dance With Dragons

Here’s the entire post:

Yes, yes, I’m still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.

Time to check the comments:

kizeesh wrote: Man thats ugly George.

Real ugly.

I’m hungry though, write something about food quick….

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ronson73 responded to a comment: Due for a break

I am not trying to be a troll here. But it seems to me that if he needs a break it is from the million other projects that seem to be in the forefront pushing Dance to the back burner. I repsect GRMM taking the time to put out quality work but lets face it it seems like everything else is getting done at the expense of Dance.

I may be mis-informed and if that is the case then I apologize but I only read the Not a blog and the news from GRRM’s own site as IMO the horse’s mouth is the only place to get info.

Again not tryng to troll..just venting a little frustaration

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windowdog responded to ronson73Re: Due for a break

Writing isn’t like shoveling sand. Some folks burn out if they do one thing too much. Given all the typing that is required for a GRRM monolith sized book (my god they must need one of those space shuttle tractors to move the pre-edit edition) I can more than understand the multiple projects.

After all, it’s his world, his time. He’s not really beholden to anyone. I’ve got to imagine he doesn’t need the money at this point.

If you ask me the fans defending George were the big jerks before anyone else was.

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September 1st, 2007

Missing Worldcon

Yeah, yeah, I know. I made the logical, adult, sensible decision, and stayed home to work on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and my myriad other projects

A pity party follows. Do you feel sorry for George?

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September 16, 2007

R.I.P. Robert Jordan

My own ICE & FIRE series might never have found its audience without the cover quote that Jim was so kind as to provide, back when A GAME OF THRONES was first published. I will always be grateful to him for that.

I woke up and read this blogpost, and that’s how I found out that Robert Jordan died. It was a sad day.

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September 23rd, 2007

The Sweet Taste of Victory

Life is magical and full of joy.

Guess what he’s talking about.

A pizza, a Hugo, and a few hundred kisses would make this a perfect day.

Remember Golden Rule #2 No Pizza talk!

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October 19th, 2007

More on the Miniatures

He’s starts posting links on the NAB.  This begins the transition from a personal blog to a business blog.

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October 22nd, 2007

Highs and Lows

Blah,blah,bah,oooooh what do we have here?

DANCE WITH DRAGONS? Yes, working on that too. Lately it’s been Tyrion and more Tyrion. When I finish these three chapters, I will need to double back and pick up some of the other POVs lest my devious dwarf get too far ahead.

oh..blah,blah,blah….

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December 12th, 2007

This, That, and t’Other Thing

Finished a Tyrion chapter yesterday, one I’ve been struggling with for months. Made a major change to the end of the chapter, one I think works much better than what I had before.

Also tackled another Tyrion chapter that had been giving me trouble, mainly by ripping Tyrion out of the scene entirely and rewriting the whole damn thing from another point of view. Not quite done with that one yet, but I think it will work better as well. However, I am keeping the old Tyrion POV version of the same events on my computer, just in case I change my mind later and decide to go back.

He’s struggling with a lot of chapters considering he told us the book was almost done back when AFFC was released.

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Dec. 31st, 2007

Goodbye, 2007

I had hoped to be able to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS during 2007. Way back around this time last year, I had even hoped that the book might be published during 2007. Neither of those happened, and to that extent the year was a disappointment… for me, as well as for my fans

Deja vu???

Still, the new year looms. I am not a big believer in New Year resolutions, but I do have some goals for 2008, both personal and professional, and the most urgent of those remains A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.

2007 concludes with A Dance With Dragon still unpublished but he’s aiming for a 2008 release which he’s going to try very hard to do!  Maybe this will be the lucky year!