Apologies for the slightly off-topic post…
It’s not looking good, folks…
George R R Martin confirms he hasn’t written anything for the 2 remaining A Song Of Ice And Fire books since 2022.
He wishes that they were finished.
The last published book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, was published in July 2011, now 13 years ago.
Obligatory song that’s now 12 years old… https://youtu.be/j7lp3RhzfgI
On the other hand we have Brandon Sanderson with 20 year roadmap and consistent release coupled with all the secret novels that he wrote.
I have this sneaking suspicion that he has this black magic power to suck all the creative will of writers, including GRRM and Patrick Rothfuss.
With Brando the Mando Sando it boils down to work ethic and process.
He has said in lectures that while writing a first draft, an author should be able to push out a thousand words an hour. That’s pretty reasonable if you’re a decent typist and you’re just focusing on getting rough ideas down. Once he’s got a draft, he throws it to his editor(s) who gets to work. If he’s gotten a draft back from them with notes, he gets on that. Otherwise, he’s cranking away at the next first draft.
The man is prolific because he’s got his team dialed in and treats it like any other job. He shows up with a plan and executes.
I stopped reading Sanderson specifically because he puts out so many books with unnecessarily huge page counts that I just don’t care anymore.
I’m not allergic to long books either, having read the entire WoT series 3+ times. But I’d much rather read stuff that authors have spent time on instead of mass producing.