Suvudu Blogger Interviews and GRRM

Alright, Shawn has posted both his questions and all of his responses already over at http://www.suvudu.com/, and I'm going to post the second question along with part of Shawn's response and my thoughts on this issue.

First, the question:



2. Are readers of A Song of Ice & Fire entitled to be angry that George has missed his own created deadlines?

In his response, Shawn makes three points he thinks are important in considering this particular issue, and they bear repeating here:

Three things about this point though that people need to remember:
1) No one is angrier about missing deadlines than George.
2) Some of those missed deadlines have legitimate reasons behind them.
3) After George missed the first two deadlines, why did the fans keep trusting him?

I think I could go on for hours on this topic alone, but I'll try to restrain myself. The first two points are, in my mind, the most important in this discussion. First off, this series is George's life work. Sure he's an accomplished writer on many fronts and across many genres - but ASOIAF is, as a friend of mine once put it, "what George was put on Earth to write." For the rest of his life, George will be known first and foremost as "the Author of A Song of Ice and Fire" - so the angry implications that populate so many corners of the internet and seem to imply that Geoge doesn't care or other nonsense is absurd. Read his updates (if you can find the old ones) and read his "Not a Blog", and it becomes painfully clear that the delays, writer's block, storyline changes, etc. have weighed on him. Calling him names or saying he doesn't care is ridiculous, and has no justification in fact.
With the second issue, this is the argument that turned my mind around a few years ago. After reading the first three books and loving them, I found an online chorus of others wishing the next book would come out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I fell into line and argued that George needed to get A Feast for Crows finished and it was unreasonable that it took so long, especially when I looked at the release of the first three books. After endless discussions, and some forceful people telling me more of the reality, I came to the realization that I was wrong. The first books didn't take him just a few years to write and release. Years of work went into the series before the release of A Game of Thrones, including work on chapters that got moved into A Clash of Kings too. Then, most importantly, after A Storm of Swords, George made a drastic change to the books and the timeline, when he chose to eliminate his intended "five year gap" and requisite flashbacks to allow the saga's children time to grow up. He ended up tossing between 18 months and 2 years worth of work - chapters and stories that never became part of A Feast for Crows. Aside from the obvious delay and loss of time, I can't imagine the amount of time and effort it took to begin re-imagining the story and building the character's chapters coherently after such a large shift in focus. Its unfortunate, but that's about it.
What really galls me with this topic in general though, is not the feelings of frustration, but rather the manner so many of the "fans" take in expressing their disappointment. I'd compare it now to a person going to dinner at a fancy restaurant. If the waiter tells you your meal will be out shortly, and then 20 minutes later informs you that they messed up your meal and had to start over, or simply forgot your food, or anything else - there is a basic scale of acceptable response. You can cut the waiter's tip, complain to the manager, or simply leave the restaurant and vow to never return. These are reasonable - and in the online community would be equated with a post about your disappointment that the book isn't done, or some cautious optimism reigning in the excitement when particularly good news about the next book comes out. Heck, even posting your 'most anticipated releases' for the coming year, and including a warning note that you still don't believe you'll see A Dance with Dragons this year, is fairly normal. But, I think anyone with a conscience can agree that standing up and berating the water, attacking his appearance, wishing death upon the chef, etc., simply makes you a jerk. Sure, the internet affords you all manner of protecting your anonymity and encouraging obnoxious behavior - but it certainly doesn't make it okay. If the way you act out online would be embarrassing in real life, maybe you need to reconsider what you are saying. I don't care if your posting a response on someone's blog, starting your own forum, or posting a cheeky blog and hiding behind pretend fake celebrity bloggers like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta (yes, I'm looking at you "Finish The Book George"!)....its classless and fairly obnoxious to say the things that have been said about George. I think its unjustified to be anything other than disappointed.