That can’t be it, because in 2019, eight years after Salinger’s son had started going through the manuscripts, he was still promising that all unpublished material would be shared.
Here is Salinger’s son in a 2023 interview (auto-translated from Spanish):
“My father asked me very clearly: publish everything, also the ugly. I’m working on the digital document transcript of his work, but I still have the longest pages and the most complex parts left,” Salinger revealed Wednesday in Madrid. “I still have a year or two left to transcribe everything. I’m looking for a way to streamline this process. Will I do it before I die? I hope so.”
In writing two of my own books I learned that other people were going to do books on the same topic which never got published. There were two authors who said they were going to write books about Medusa that I learned of when I was researching Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon. Since I mentioned their ideas and works, I’d like to think I broke the curse.
I learned near the end of writing Mystery Ship, about the weird career of US Submarine S-49 that not only had an ex-sub officer been researching a book on the same topic, but he’d actually written it. But he never got it published. Again, I relate his findings that I didn’t have (He interviewed people who had died before I even started research, for instance), so I kinda broke the curse on that one, too.
I went to the bookstore in NYC where Goldman found S. Morgenstern’s book, but had no luck finding the sequel (this is not a joke - I actually went there: it’s a real place)
Other Worlds Than These, the third book of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s Talisman trilogy, has been announced for publication in October 2026. The Talisman was published in 1984 and Bleak House was published in 2001, so this final volume isn’t that far behind the earlier pace. In fact, when you considered Straub died in 2022, you have to admire his work ethic in finishing the series.
Given his most recent blog post, it’s clear that Martin has not worked on Winds of Winter for the last six months at a minimum. It’s interesting to see him blather on about how he hasn’t had time to post, as if it’s the blog posts we’re waiting for. Nobody gives a crap about that, George! We’re just hoping it means that you are actually writing.
He’s a victim of his own success. How could he possibly meet the readers’ expectations at this point?
This is why I want to complete any series I write before I publish it, but that’s not really recommended. The odds of series potential are so low for any novel.
But who wants to live in the hell he’s living in? Not me.
I’m ok with the ASOFAI series never being finished. The fact that WOW is taking so long makes me think that I won’t enjoy the finished project. Either wrapping up the plot is intractable or GRRM has lost the spark for the story.
I read somewhere that Martin had outlines for the first three books, and stuck to them. He had an outline for the next one, too, but decided to write another book in between 3 and 4 because he had some interesting ideas on what the characters would be doing in the meantime. Then the book he wrote ended up to be too long, so he split it into two books - which ended up being A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons. And then, apparently, he saw the utter mess he had made of his narrative, realized he had no idea where to go from there, threw up his hands and said “Fuck it”.
The lesson here: have a plan, and stick to it. If you come up with some new ideas, for God’s sake, save them for your next series. Discipline.
