Lord Loom (not verified) on June 28, 2008 - 08:30.
I don't think he's using the wrong arguments tho - the very base of the issue is that Martin is an obsessive perfectionist, which (seemingly) led to him losing focus. There's nothing wrong with the wish to make the book as good as possible, but if he can't see that this whole obsession with rewriting chapters again and again didn't really lead to a better book, being a perfectionist isn't really a good thing.
Ideas and good intentions aren't questioned, but planning (sorry, if it takes Martin x years to rewrite a story he already had laid out, you just can't argue that has nothing to do with planning) and, yes, maybe "grasp of reality" are. Or not so much grasp of reality but the ability to look at your work from a certain critical distance. Martin seems to be caught up in the minutae and details and he just can't seem to stop adding new stuff and rewriting old one. And I'm worried this will lead to a further reduced reading experience (book 4.1 was already slightly "worse" than his previous books) which would be an absolute pity because I love the series and I want it to get a proper ending that won't take another 10+ years to be released.
Re: No dancing with dragons this year
I don't think he's using the wrong arguments tho - the very base of the issue is that Martin is an obsessive perfectionist, which (seemingly) led to him losing focus. There's nothing wrong with the wish to make the book as good as possible, but if he can't see that this whole obsession with rewriting chapters again and again didn't really lead to a better book, being a perfectionist isn't really a good thing.
Ideas and good intentions aren't questioned, but planning (sorry, if it takes Martin x years to rewrite a story he already had laid out, you just can't argue that has nothing to do with planning) and, yes, maybe "grasp of reality" are. Or not so much grasp of reality but the ability to look at your work from a certain critical distance. Martin seems to be caught up in the minutae and details and he just can't seem to stop adding new stuff and rewriting old one. And I'm worried this will lead to a further reduced reading experience (book 4.1 was already slightly "worse" than his previous books) which would be an absolute pity because I love the series and I want it to get a proper ending that won't take another 10+ years to be released.