George R.R. Martin on why he doesn’t often post updates about The Winds of Winter

So George R.R. Martin has been working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series, for a while now. Fans are famously antsy for news about the book’s progress (or, more to the point, for the book) and are known to occasionally ask after it in the comments section of his blog posts. Over the past few days, Martin responded to a few of their queries.

The post in question didn’t have anything to do with The Winds of Winter — it was about the art featured in Wild Cards, an ongoing sci-fi anthology series Martin edits. Martin often posts about Wild Cards, and commenter slancet27 isn’t entirely please with that:

"While I am sure there are wild card fans, I’m willing to bet 99% of your fans are for asoiaf. Using the popularity of that to promote wild cards to readers who don’t care about it is annoying when you haven’t provided even a nugget of info about WoW in over a year. Fans are annoyed or angry because they love your work, I’m sure it’s a burden but that’s why you get the big bucks.Maybe a 10:1 wild cards to asoiaf posts would be fair. Give us something George, we are starving."

Martin responded with some food for thought.

"While it is certainly true that SONG OF ICE AND FIRE has many more followers than WILD CARDS, I think your 99% to 1% is rather an exaggeration. Wild Cards is pretty popular as well, elsewise it would not have lasted for thirty years and twenty-three volumes (with four more in the pipeline).If I post more about Wild Cards than Ice & Fire, it’s because there is more to report — books coming out, being delivered, a new website, and so on. I do post about Ice & Fire and GAME OF THRONES whenever there is actual news to report. Do you really want or need weekly WoW posts all saying, “Still working on it, not done yet?” I know some writers make posts like, “Wrote three pages today,” but that’s never been my way. And when I tried doing posts like that, back when I was working on DANCE WITH DRAGONS, that just seemed to make people angry as well."

It does sound like a bit of a doomed-if-you-do-and-doomed-if-you-don’t situation.

Speaking of Wild Cards, Martin said in a different post that, while he does occasionally write for the series in addition to editing it, he doesn’t really have time for it these day, and probably won’t “until I’ve finished WINDS OF WINTER, and maybe DREAM OF SPRING as well.”

Martin also responded to a commenter, William Gicking, who argued that fans who are “obsessed with [Martin’s] work” are paying him a compliment. After all, he says, “it’s kinda your fault that we exist in the first place.” Responded Martin:

"“… obsessed with my work,” okay, sure, but…1) obsession is never good, we all need a sense of proportion, and2) it’s all my work. Well, WILD CARDS is the work of forty plus people, but I am and always have been a huge part of it, as writer and editor and chief cook and bottle washer. Haviland Tuf is my work, Thousand Worlds is my work… my work includes Ice & Fire, but also a lot more."

Responding to notoriousreecey, Martin also clarified his opinion regarding speculation among fans that he might not live to finish the Song of Ice and Fire series:

"I don’t see speculation about the possibility of my death as any sort of compliment, no. My own hope is to live another thirty years and write thirty more books."

Questions about how often or whether Martin should inform his fans regarding his progress on A Song of Ice and Fire have come up before. They’ll probably come up again, although maybe not on Martin’s blog. It remains a tricky issue. What do you guys think? Would you like “weekly WoW posts” with tiny updates, are you content to just let Martin write at his own pace, or do you have another angle?