Super Bowl 2020 odds: 49ers vs. Chiefs opening line

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The only thing I can conclude from this thread is that, if TWOW does not get published soon, some of us will go mad.

Modesty Lannister, 25/3/2015
Some time ago I wrote a post recollecting Every reference and allusion to the Winds of Winter on NotABlog. I was inspired to write this post because George had just provided a juicy update on The Winds of Winter (the last one to date), and many people were reminded of that pre-ADWD period, the few (not-so-few actually) months before the publication date for ADWD was announced, during which GRRM updated his fans on his work very often.
So here is a list of every allusion, hidden or plain reference to A Dance With Dragons GRRM's ever made on his Not a Blog before he announced completion:
Keep in mind that this is only the references he made IN HIS POSTS. I am aware he gave other information on the book in comments, interviews, but I'm not taking these into account.
((And yeah if anyone wants a list of every reference to ADWD on NaB EVER, they're welcome to compile it themselves, but I doubt anyone's mad enough.))
So here we go :
2006
" I have a big chunk of a new Dunk & Egg novella that I should be able to finish with a good solid week of work... and then I've got some dragons waiting for a dance. We'll see how all that goes. " - year's end - 3/1/2006
"While our roof is being torn off in Santa Fe, I plan to be off walking the Wall with Jon Snow, or visiting Dany and her dragons in Meereen. Or so I hope...." - back from the north - 21/1/2006
" So another NFL season is now done, which means that Sunday becomes a work day for me once again. That should please everyone waiting for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. " - Super Bowl XL - 5/2/2006
"(And no, I am NOT going to forget about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's still my number one priority, and will remain so until it's done)." - Remember the Hugo - 7/3/2006
Pretty substantial update on ADWD. George talks about his current work on some Jon chapters especially - this, that, and the other thing - 28/3/2006
" Oh, and I suppose you want to know how the DANCE is coming? Work continues. I finished the revisions on the Jon Snow chapters that I was talking about last month, and moved on to Tyrion for a while, but just now I am working on a new viewpoint character, and a chapter set in steamy harbor of Old Volantis. Where I shall be returning, first thing tomorrow." George is working on the Merchant's Man, Quentyn Martell's first chapter in Dance. - Home Alone - 13/5/2006
"Meanwhile, for those who do read this page... yes, I am still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and yes, I still hope to deliver it this fall, or by the end of the year at the latest. " Ouch... - Belated Update - 30/5/2006
" I'm home again and it is time to get going on the novel once more. I have less than a month until worldcon, and I would like to get a big chunk of DANCE done before I take off for Anaheim. " - San Diego - 26/7/2006
"This will no doubt upset all those readers who want me to stay home and write, write, write, but it looks as though I will be taking to the road again in the fall. " - On the Road Again - 9/8/2006
GRRM on why last month was a generally bad month for writing - Off to Worldcon - 17/8/2006
" I have half a dozen different projects on my plate, but the big one is A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and I am going to be pushing hard on that in the weeks and months to come, in hopes of wrapping it up by the end of the year. " Ouch... - Home for the Holidays - 17/10/2006
" Right now I'm trying to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, [...] " - PayPal Thinks I'm a Terrorist - 5/11/2006
George did not, in fact, finish Dance before the end of the year. - Good News and Bad News - 5/12/2006
" When A FEAST FOR CROWS came out, I realized that something close to half the book had already been out there in one form or another [...] I am not going to do that with DANCE. - Wild Cards Returns! - 11/12/2006
2007
" Lest anyone have a heart attack, let me hasten to add that this [computer crash] has NOT affected A DANCE WITH DRAGONS or any of my other work-in-progress. " - Gleep - 5/1/2007
George had a very productive day on ADWD and explains his writing routine in days such as this one - a good day's dancing - 21/4/2007
"Unfortunately, the last two days have been less productive, at least for DANCE." - this and that and t'other thing - 27/4/2007
George will be doing a reading from ADWD on Second Life come thursday. - My Second Life - 29/5/2007
Update on ADWD, and GRRM contemplates cancelling an appearance at worldcon in Japan in order to be able to finish the book. - The Only Living Boy in New York - 25/6/2007
"I'm working on DANCE, as I've reported, but I have other projects too, and that's going to continue to be true for a long, long time." - a new deal for WILD CARDS - 28/6/2007
George reads the prologue of ADWD at InConjunction in Indianapolis, and shares the writing process of this particular chapter. - Back from Indianapolis - 11/7/2007
After a revision, the prologue is now one page shorter but much stronger - Busy Week - 17/7/2007
" I am, however, getting bloody sick of all the off-topic comments, and the trolls who use any LJ post of mine, regardless of subject, as another excuse to slam me about DANCE being late. " - Ice & Fire Miniatures - 13/8/2007
"Yes, yes, I'm still working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS." - A Dance With Dragons - 29/8/2007
" Yeah, yeah, I know. I made the logical, adult, sensible decision, and stayed home to work on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and my myriad other projects. " - Missing Worldcon - 1/9/2007
" DANCE WITH DRAGONS? Yes, working on that too. Lately it's been Tyrion and more Tyrion. When I finish these three chapters, I will need to double back and pick up some of the other POVs lest my devious dwarf get too far ahead. " - Highs and Lows - 22/10/2007
" And when I read the prologue of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS [at WFC], I liked it a lot better than the earlier version I read at a couple cons last summer." - Home from WFC - 16/11/2007
" Finished a Tyrion chapter yesterday, one I've been struggling with for months. " + Update on recent progress concerning Tyrion's chapters in Dance - This, That, and t'Other Thing - 12/12/2007
New Year's post (ADWD wasn't announced in 2007 after all...) - Goodbye,2007 - 31/12/2007
2008
"I've sent a new sample chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and an update on the current status of the book to my webmaster.[...] (And no, the book's not done. Didn't I just say that in yesterday's post?) " - Updates Coming - 1/1/2008
" It's been a busy few weeks for DANCE. I have been working on a Dany chapter and a Bran chapter. (The Bran chapters remain incredibly hard to write, for what it's worth, and this one is no different). " - Another Month Rushes By - 27/1/2008
"... I am pleased to be able to announce that they have just signed up artist Marc Fishman to illustrate their deluxe limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. " - And Speaking of Subterranean - 5/3/2008
George finishes a Bran chapter he's been struggling with for six years (my guess would be Bran III in ADWD) - One More Chapter Done - 15/3/2008
" The issue [of Bantam's new promotional magazine, SpectraPULSE] will include a new, never-before-seen chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS." - Comicon Giveaway - 17/3/2008
"If I can deliver the book before the end of June, you'll see these [new covers] in your favorite bookstore sometime this fall. If I can't, well... you'll still see them eventually, I hope." - Dance Gets Covered - 17/3/2008
" Of course, I need to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS before I leave, or else my publishers will hunt me down and kill me. " - Home Again - 13/4/2008
" One day at a time. One page at a time. One word at a time. June is coming up too fast." Sounds similar? - Better - 10/5/2008
"I am getting a lot done. Finished an Arya chapter yesterday, and a Sansa chapter the day before. [...] One chapter at a time, one page at a time, one sentence at a time. " General progress on ADWD, and here, George is probably writing the Alayne I chapter that was (much) later released as a sample for TWOW. He also goes on to explain that portions of the chapters he finished have been written years ago, so he hasn't been writing one chapter per day. - Home alone - 23/5/2008
"Meanwhile, I'm still here, still holding down the fort, working on DANCE, on Vance, on WARRIORS, on WILD CARDS." - Parris Off to Ireland - 9/6/2008
"This is the major event for fans of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. I will be talking about the series, reading a bit from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS [...]" - Coming to Portugal - 16/6/2008
"No, I didn't finish the novel, though not for want of trying. Nothing to be done about that but push on when I return." - Made It to Europe - 25/6/2008
"There's been far too much off-topic commentary of late, however. I am perfectly aware that A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is late. There's no need to remind me, thanks, I have plenty of editors and agents and publishers to do that." - A Gentle Reminder - 19/9/2008
"In view of what's happening right now, however, I find a need to say a word or three, even if it means taking a few hours off from DANCE WITH DRAGONS [...] " - Beneath Contempt - 9/10/2008
"Purchasers will also acquire the rights to buy the same number of Subterranean's limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, somewhere down the road." - Only 30 Copies Left - 11/10/2008
" (And no, they did NOT take my computers, so the hard drive where A DANCE WITH DRAGONS lives is still there, and safe, and I haven't lost any work. [...] )" Burglars break into George's office! - Monday Morning Blues - 27/10/2008
"Now all I need to do is wrap up WARRIORS and SUICIDE KINGS and... yes... A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and maybe I'll be able to take a week off." - Vance Book Delivered - 8/12/2008
" Damn. If only I'd finished DANCE. I might be able to afford it [a spaceship miniature]." - Hey, Santa - 11/12/2008
2009
" Alas, this does not mean my back is monkeyless. Couple more still sitting up there, including King Kong, the dragon monkey. But you guys know about him." - One Monkey Off My Back - 17/2/2009
"No, it's not done. [...] I made a lot of progress on the book in the first half of 2008.[...] I am trying to finish the book by June. I think I can do that." ADWD update - A Dance With Dragons - 19/2/2009
GRRM addresses the people who hate his other projects and think he should only focus on Dance 24/7 instead of "wasting time" on other things like football. - To My Detractors - 19/2/2009
" I am still pounding my head against that bloody keyboard daily. Today it was in service of... ah, no, you're not supposed to know about that POV character yet." A general thank you to the overflow of support comments regarding George's previous post - Thanks - 20/2/2009
"(Oh, by the way, Marc Fishman is already hard at work on the artwork for the Subterranean limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. [...] )" - And Speaking of Limited Editions - 22/2/2009
"(I wasn't going to comment anymore about DANCE, deadlines, and lateness, but a friend sent me this link, and I couldn't resist. [...])" - I Know Just How You Feel, Pat - 26/2/2009
"Me, I'm going back to DANCE. Maybe I can even finish that bloody Tyrion chapter today..." - The Calendars Are Signed - 12/3/2009
"(It's snowing, too)." Not sure if this one counts, but as you'll see below, George has been known to use the "it's snowing" prhasing to mean that he's working hard on Dance. - Tax Time - 27/3/2009
"The days and weeks and months seem to go by so quickly now... and the pages come so slowly..." - Random Thoughts at Midnight - 28/3/2009
George has found a partner to finish the series after his death !!! - A Partner for the Dance - 1/4/2009
Just kidding, it's an April Fool's. - Well, Not Really - 2/4/2009
"Before anyone has a heart attack... I write with WordStar on a DOS computer that is completely separate from the Windows machine I use for email. It doesn't even have Windows, or any internet connection. So A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and my other work is safe." - George has a "computer catastrophe" - I Hate Computers - 15/4/2009
"Much improved these last two days. I've even been writing well." - feeling feisty - 17/5/2009
" Now if I can only slash through the Meereenese knot that I've been worrying at since 2005, I may actually start to get excited. " George has just had the most productive period on Dance in a long time. - Guarded Optimism - 22/6/2009
"Parris returns to Ireland, and I head home to the cats, the green chile, and A DANCE WITH DRAGONS." - Farewell to Finland - 15/7/2009
"I'm hoping to complete a few more chapters for DANCE before taking off. Still tugging, slashing, and cursing that Meereenese knot." - Home Again - 17/7/2009
"My reading is at 5pm tomorrow. Will probably read a chapter from DANCE, haven't decided which one yet." - Bubonicon - 27/8/2009
ADWD sorta-update - Dancing - 3/9/2009
"A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: I took a good hard swack at the Meereenese knot. The sword bounced off and cut my nose off. Bugger." This is probably a reference to Tyrion, meaning he's at this moment working on his last chapters in ADWD, or even his first in TWOW - Jots and Niggles - 9/9/2009
"Finishing the chapter felt good. Especially since it also completed that character's arc for the book. Admittedly, she has only two chapters in DANCE, so I am not sending up any flares." George is talking about either Cersei, or Arya in this post. - A Smidge of Progress - 11/9/2009
ADWD is now 1100 MS pages long, and longer than AGOT and AFFC. - Dance,Dance, Dance - 6/10/2009
" [...] I'll be reading a chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. " - See You In Fargo - 14/10/2009
2010
"I meant to post yesterday on the weekend's games, but got busy writing instead, and finished a Tyrion chapter that I've been struggling with for six months. Nibbling away at that knot. We'll see if the finished chapter holds up to reread and polish today." - Adventures in 2010 - 5/1/2010
"(Yes, I know. King Kong is still perched up on my shoulders. He was a king in his world, but I'll teach him fear)." - Another Monkey Off My Back - 13/1/2010
"Snowing like hell in Santa Fe today. [...] The good news: finished a chapter today. The bad news: it's one I've finished at least four times before. This time, though, I think I finally got it right. We'll see. Still whacking at the Meereenese knot. [...] " - Dancing - 28/1/2010
" 'nuff said. " - A Good Day, With Snow - 29/1/2010
" Jeez, guys. Calm down. This is why I hate to do updates. I say I have good day, and immediately I have a hundred people deciding this means that DANCE is finished. " Seems like nothing's changed ten years later ! - No, No, No - 30/1/2010
" I have indeed finished that Jon Snow chapter, and I think it doesn't suck. That doesn't mean the book is done. Still more to write. Just sayin'" - Don't Go Wiggy On Me Now - 31/1/2010
"[...] I'm floating off the Isle of Cedars, or racing across the sands of Dorne. Warm places, both of them, with nary a flake to be seen. But I'd better not change horses. If I keep on keeping on, I should finish one of those chapters this week. Maybe both." - Snowing Again in Santa Fe- 3/2/2010
" Spent the day in the rainwood. 1205 pages. More to come. DANCE has now passed A CLASH OF KINGS to become the second longest volume in the series, though still three hundred pages shorter than the monster that was A STORM WITH SWORDS." George is writing Arianne II, which was pushed back into TWOW and was later released as a sample chapter - Not Done Yet - 8/2/2010
" But today was a good, productive day. Only problem is that the chapter I finished just now is going to require that I go back and rewrite one of the chapters I finished last week. Minor stuff, though. Shouldn't take more than a day. (Famous last words, I know)." - Not Done Yet - 14/2/2010
"But I've left the Isle of Cedars behind, at least. 1261 pages and counting. [...] Anyway, there we are. Back to the grindstone tomorrow." GRRM also elaborates on how the timeline of ADWD is "a bitch and a half". - Not Done Yet - 15/2/2010
"Last but not least, there's Meereen. Can I just drop a hydrogen bomb on the damn place?" - Wolves in the Night - 19/2/2010
"I'll be doing a Q&A, several signing sessions, and maybe a reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS." - Odds and Ends and Snow - 21/2/2010
" ... may be fraying, just a little. But don't quote me on that. " - The Meereenese Knot - 26/2/2010
" I'll be here writing, while David and Dan will be out in the center of the storm, writing the scripts and supervising pre-production. On other fronts, I hit page 1311 yesterday. No, not done yet. For some reason, got nothing written today." Game of Thrones is official. - The Green Light - 2/3/2010
"[Talking about his podcasts] I imagine I will be doing more of these when DANCE WITH DRAGONS comes out." - A Blast From the Past - 5/3/2010
"I'm going back to the DANCE. I need to kill someone. " - Grey Days - 18/3/2010
"In addition to the on-going work on DANCE, I am also trying to wrap up FORT FREAK, volume twenty-one in the Wild Cards series, and will soon need to gear up to write my season one script for HBO." - Odds and Ends - 23/3/2010
"All I have to do now is write my script for the HBO series,[...] write up my version of the last Suvudu cage match so Jaime doesn't lose to Rand al'Thor, complete A DANCE WITH DRAGONS,[...] - The Taxman Cometh - 7/4/2010
"(P.S. Had a good day writing today. Half the day on the book, half the day on the script. That's something I NEVER do. But today everything seemed to click. Taxes are done too)." - That Toddling Town - 15/4/2010
"this project will NOT take any writing time away from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS or subsequent Ice & Fire novels, even if it runs for ten years " - Homecoming - 20/4/2010
"On other fronts, I am writing on DANCE WITH DRAGONS [...] " - Coming Soon to a Theater Near You - 27/4/2010
"Hear me talk with Mike & Mike (no, not Greenberg and Golic) about WARRIORS, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and the HBO series. " - Can't Shut Me Up - 28/4/2010
"Other monkeys are still frolicking up there, including Kong. He was a king in his world, but we'll teach him fear... " - May Day - 1/5/2010
"Monkey front. Whacking at King Kong, making progress, but not as fast or easy as I like. " - More Odds, More Ends - 7/5/2010
"As for me... there are still a few more monkeys to wrestle into submission. Including Kong. " - Freaky Monkey Bites the Dust - 24/5/2010
"Meanwhile, I've been wrestling with Kong. For more than a week I've been pounding on the epilogue, but still can't get it to gel. [...]" - Stuff and Nonsense - 16/6/2010
"I am dancing, boys and girls, I'm dancing as fast as I can. But some days it does feel as if I am dancing in circles. " George decides to move two Arianne chapters in TWOW. - Dancing In Circles - 27/6/2010
"I just flipped over the calendar from June to July (okay, I'm a little late). And what do I find staring at me? A huge gorilla. " - A Good Omen??? - 2/7/2010
"I'll be reading a chapter from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, [...]" - Clarion Call - 3/7/2010
" No, no, not THAT long wait, sorry... [...] And for that other long wait... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. " - The Long Wait Is Over!!! - 14/7/2010
"Snowing heavily in Santa Fe, however, and I've been on a bit of a roll. I'll get to all that other stuff when I can. Kong comes first. [...] Off I go to shovel Snow. " - Snowbound - 21/7/2010
"And here I sit at my computer, still shoveling Snow. And snow. The snow won't stop. The squids don't like it much. sigh... I'm missing all the fun, just to make more fun for you guys." - The Only Living Boy in New York - 25/7/2010
"Finally, might mention that I finished a chapter of the DANCE today. I had one last chapter about this particular character -- I will call him Fred -- to finish, and then I am done with him for the book. " - A Few Odds, Some Ends - 30/7/2010
"The good news is that I seem to have written more than a hundred pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER already. " George moves the Forsaken from ADWD to TWOW. - Dancing - 31/7/2010
"Still have that final Fred chapter to finish. Sometimes it's good to change gears, though, so I did that today, and completed the last Barney chapter." - Dancing - 1/8/2010
"I actually had a very good day today, writing about a character who wasn't originally supposed to be a POV, but has turned out to be sharpest sword I've got for slicing through the Meereenese knot. One page at a time. One sentence at a time. One word at a time. " - August - 4/8/2010
"Another chapter done. And another character. This wraps up Yogi for the book. The Meereenese knot is hanging by a thread. One more good slash and it may finally part. " - Dancing - 7/8/2010
"And, of course, I have this book to finish. " Martin cancels his trip to New York City Comicon. - Sorry, New York - 8/8/2010
"And as long as I was swapping out samples, I rotated the excerpt on the Ice & Fire sample page as well, replacing the first Tyrion chapter from DANCE with the first Jon Snow. Enjoy the reads. " - Sample, Sample - 11/8/2010
"11:00 am reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS " - Aussiecon IV - 19/8/2010
" No, not Kong. Sorry. " - Another monkey Off My Back - 30/9/2010
" I'll be reading a chapter from DANCE at the FFG event too. " - One Down - 11/11/2010
" And tomorrow, back in Westeros. " - 16/11/2010
" Meanwhile, in Westeros, I am wrestling with krakens. " - G-Men - 20/11/2010
" It's snowing. On Jon. On the krakens. On me. We all slog onward. Finished a chapter a few days ago. Revised another. Then re-revised it. The days go too fast, the work too slowly. But onward. " - Snow - 16/12/2010
2011
" Parris and my docs agree, no more twelve-hour days for a while. So posts here may be less frequent than before. Kong comes first. " - Home Again - 11/1/2011
"And Ty and Daniel are already halfway done with the second book [about vomit zombies], which they write on Ty's day off. I have warned him that if they finish that before I finish DANCE, I'll have to kill them. " - Zombies in Space - 26/1/2011
" Must run now. Kong is calling. " - Some Odds, Some Ends - 11/2/2011
"Wrestling with a pair of krakens. One almost subdued, t'other still writhing and twisting and slapping me alongside the head with her tenatcles. After them, I've got a wolf to face." - Snowstorm on Skull Island - 15/2/2011
"And now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming, and me to Skull Island, where Kong is staggering a little." - The Social Media - 17/2/2011
"And now we’ve off for a six-month Honeymoon trip around the world. See you when we get back. (no, no, no, just kidding. GRRM will be honeymooning on Skull Island, I promise) " - Big, Big, BIG News - 17/2/2011
" And on other fronts... it's still snowing on Skull Island, but one of the krakens is done and t'other is down to the last tentacle. Closer and closer... inch by inch, word by word, step by step... " - The Latest HBO Preview - 27/2/2011
" No. Sorry. Not done yet. I'm close, though. [...] The end is in sight, at long long last, and we're close enough so that my editors and publishers at Bantam Spectra have set an actual publication date." ADWD now has an official publication date. - DRAGON TIME - 3/3/2011
" And if the DANCE announcement wasn't enough for you (greedy bastards!), there's a brand new HBO trailer just out." - EW Exclusive - 3/3/2011
" My friends at Harper Collins Voyager have confirmed that the British edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS will also be released on July 12 of this year, simultaneously with the American edition. " - Good News for Old Blighty - 4/3/2011
" And, yes, yes, we are doing all we can to make sure it is Roy Dotrice who will record the audiobook for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. " - Roy Sets a Record - 11/3/2011
" As of this morning, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is thirty (manuscript) pages longer than A STORM OF SWORDS. And. Not. Done. Yet. " - He's STILL a king in his world - 12/3/2011
" I do my best, but Kong is a mighty foe. Back to Skull Island." - Ye Old Tie-In - 15/3/2011
" Bantam has informed me that world record holder Roy Dotrice has been signed to read the audiobook of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. " - You Asked For It - 24/3/2011
" Two more [short] chapters done. More to come. Kong grows bigger and bigger. Past 1600 pp in manuscript now. Oy. Certainly the biggest monkey ever to climb on my back." - KONG - 27/3/2011
"I am writing as fast as I can. Finished a Meereen chapter yesterday, hope to finish another one today" - Watch the Skies! - 30/3/2011
" I've been too busy working on these last few chapters of DANCE to follow the progress of this season's Suvudu cage matches much " - 30/3/2011
" NOT a casting. NOT about the DANCE. NOT about the show. Just a bit of geeky fun. " - 30/3/2011
Bantam to split ADWD into five. - Bantam To Split DANCE Into Five - 1/4/2011
" More a little later. I have to get back to Kong. " - Tonight's the Night! - 17/4/2011
KONG IS DEAD !!! - twas beauty... - 27/4/2011
Of course, I probably missed a few of these little references, but I'm definitely not going to go through all these posts again just to check.
​
First things first: retches Fuck that was horrible... At least now I've seen every goddamned blog post he's written... But what did it cost?
Now the data:
Number of references by year:

Year:	Number of references:
2006	14
2007	15
2008	18
2009	22
2010	45 (!)
2011 (up to April)	21

Number of references every quadrimester:

Months:	Number of references:
January - April 2006	5
May - August 2006	5
September - December 2006	4
January - April 2007	3
May - August 2007	7
September - December 2007	5
January - April 2008	7
May - August 2008	5
September - December 2008	6
January - April 2009	12
May - August 2009	5
September - December 2009	5
January - April 2010	22
May - August 2010	18
September - December 2010	5
January - April 2011	21

So yeah, that's a pretty huge contrast with TWOW. I previously counted that George made 10 (add to that one or two more since 2020 wasn't over yet when the list was drawn up) TWOW references last year, which is the most he's ever made, but even that is below the lowest number of ADWD references he has made in a year. However, it's understandable: Fans have been waiting for now almost ten years for the damn book, and everytime George opens his mouth and says either "winds" or "winter", everyone gets mad and thinks it'll be released soon (me included, there's no point in denying it).
In general, GRRM also writes posts less often than he did ten years ago: the only few times he didn't post for a long period of time was because he was travelling, or at hospital, or because of some other thing that prevented him from blogging. Nowadays, especially of late, there are repeated periods of 7+ days without any blog post (He lost many friends lately, so that's certainly the main reason, but still).
It should be noted that GRRM was far less shy about giving specifics regarding progress on ADWD than he is now for TWOW. All alog the writing process of ADWD, he often stated which POVs he was working on, if he pushes chapters into the next book, how many chapters he's recently finished, and even went several times as far as giving a manuscript pages count (something that'll never happen for Winds, I'm afraid). Nowadays, the mere mentions of The Winds of Winter in a blog post is considered a benediction, for reasons explained above.
u/Words_are_TWOW also made an interesting table recollecting the partials GRRM mentioned sending to his publishers in his ADWD Post-Mortem.

Date	Pages	Number of ADWD references since last partial	GRRM Self Described Writing Speed
Jan 2006	542	None	Dealing with book split
Oct 2007	472	25	More rewriting than writing
March 2008	596	6	Good Spell
May 2008	684	5	Good Spell
Dec 2008	774	8	Good Spell
Sept 2009	998	19	Slow and Steady
Jan 2010	1038	5	Slow and Steady
June 2010	1028	25	Picking up steam again
August 2010	1332	9	Picking up steam again
Dec 2010	1412	10	Picking up steam again
March 2011	1571	8	Picking up steam again
May 2011	1512	14 (before completion announcement only)	Finished and announces publish date

So can we conclude from this list that the current situation is similar to the 10 or so months period before ADWD was announced?
Well, some have said that the wording in George's last update were also used frequently shortly before ADWD was completed. But the phrase "one page at a time, one sentence at a time, one word at a time" was also used long before, in 2008 for example.
However we can also see that George wrote 300+ pages for ADWD between June and August 2010, and we can plainly see that by the number of references he did in the first half of that year: he was apparently making great progress, and couldn't stop talking about it. Now comparatively, in 2020, George has made more substantial TWOW updates than ever before, and some of them even (somewhat?) bear resemblance to that of ADWD ( "Finished a Meereen chapter yesterday, hope to finish another one today" and "Three more chapters completed this past week. And good progress on several more.").
Personally, I want to believe that we are experiencing an equivalent of that pre-ADWD period (but we shall see soon enough, when he writes another update, whenever that is going to be).
But what do you think?
(( Let the eternal war between the Summer Children and the Winter Wolves begin ! ))
More fun/interesting/intriguing things I found while being bored :
- First ever Not a Blog post, for those who are interested - Not A Blog - 2/7/2005
- " Oh, and I've also come up with a new title for the seventh (and final, I hope, I hope, I hope) volume of the series -- A DREAM OF SPRING." - this, that, and the other thing - 28/3/2006
- " I have a big conference call tomorrow about one project that cannot yet be announced" Birth of Game of Thrones? - This, That, and The Other Thing - 14/7/2006
- Game of Thrones is officially born - HBO options A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE - 17/1/2007
- " Maybe once I finish A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, I will do a legal thriller set in the Seven Kingdoms next." - I'm Not a Lawyer... - 18/12/2007
- After a solved computer crash, George gives details on his DOS machine and his backup in case there is any accident. - Back In Business- 16/4/2009
- Someone made a song titled "George R.R.Martin Is Not Your Bitch" - Your Hit Parade - 13/8/2009
- Tyrion helps Jaime in figuring out how to defeat Cthulhu - Suvudu Cage Matches, Round Two - 17/3/2010
- Jaime fights Patrick Rothfuss's singing innkeeper Kvothe - Suvudu Final Four - 2/4/2010
- After Kvothe's defeat, Jaime prepares for his next challenge: a Trial of Seven. - Rand al'Thor Talks Trash - 5/4/2010
- Jaime's effing awesome Trial of Seven. - Trial of Seven - 10/4/2010
- George was hospitalized for a week. - Nightmare Before Christmas - 5/1/2011
- GRRM's Marriage - Big, Big, BIG News - 17/2/2011
- A prophecy threatens to come true! - Watch the Skies!- 30/3/2011
- April Fool's joke - Bantam To Split DANCE Into Five - 1/4/2011
- ADWD post-mortem - Talking About the Dance - 19/5/2011
TLDR: A list of every ADWD reference and allusion GRRM's made on NaB before he announced completion.

I am 33 years old, make $180,000, live in Los Angeles, and am self employed
Intro: I hope this gives people an idea of what finances look like while self-employed. I have included the Ref29 questions at the beginning to give you some more context. I am really nervous and excited to share this and appreciate being part of this community. Please be easy on me as this was not easy for me to share.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes. Neither of my parents had college degrees. They didn’t really emphasize needing to go to college but the pressure came from the environment I was in. At my high school, it was assumed that everyone would go to a 4-year college. Community College was not even talked about as an option. Even though I am a first generation college student, it is not as much part of my identity as I think it plays for others. My dad was extremely successful in starting his own business as was my step dad, who also did not go to college. Now with a PhD, I almost feel like I took the easy route.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Yes. My father passed away extremely suddenly when I was 13 and my mom was put in the position of figuring out what we were going to do since she did not work outside of helping my dad with his company. I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood (TV shows are made about the neighborhood I grew up in), went to private school, got a BMW as my first car, and went on international vacations every year (both to visit our family in our home country--my mom and I are the only ones in the U.S.-- but also to visit family friends in places like South Africa). It was an extremely privileged upbringing.
When my dad passed away, my mother started emphasizing the need to cut down on expenses. I was extremely lucky that I did not have to change schools when my father passed away and that I could maintain a stable environment.
As I got a little bit older there was a huge emphasis from my mother on women needing to take care of themselves and men not needing to know everything that they had. I am in my 30s and unmarried and this has definitely influenced my financial expectations and goals.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I would say no. Even when my dad passed away, we did not have any obvious financial struggles (or at least my mother never showed me).
Do you worry about money now?
I do not worry about money now. Half a year ago when I was ramping up my consulting business there were a few months where I didn't have any clients and I was worried about what would happen next. I am thankfully now at a point where I no longer have fears of not getting clients.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I think there is some debate in this community of what this even means. At 21, when I graduated college and got a job, I started paying for my bills although my mom still paid for the phone bill and car insurance. I do have a safety net in terms of being able to move home if I needed to and that I can make passive income through renting my apartment (more on this later).
I do think how I grew up led to my being able to get a Ph.D. At the time I made this decision, it wasn't about finding a job that made the most money, instead, it was about what I'm really interested in.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Yes. As I mentioned above my father passed away extremely unexpectedly when I was 13. I got a sum of money from his Social Security payout every month until I turned eighteen. This went to a college fund for me which was used to pay for college and a small portion for a down payment of the current property that I live in. My mother also contributed the rest of the down payment (totaling 20%) on the property that I live in. I purchased the property (2 apartments and a house, three units total) in 2013, which was a great time in Los Angeles to buy. I am extremely grateful to my mother for coming up with this suggestion and doing this for me.
In 2021, I am also expecting to receive my father’s portion of an inheritance from my grandparents. I will most likely keep this in our home country and will need to learn more about the tax implications.
I receive passive income from house hacking. This money goes into a separate account that the mortgage is pulled from and I do not count in my calculations. This account pretty much zeros out every year due to expenses, mortgage, and property tax.
Income Progression:
I've been working in my field for 11 years. I am counting the first year of my PhD as the first year I started working in my field.
Prior to my PhD I had a few odd jobs. I babysat as a teenager. I had a job the summer before college at a health food store in my area (I believe I was making $8 an hour plus tips) and I worked for 1 year as an admin assistant from 2009-2010.
2009-2010: I took a year off between my undergraduate and graduate degrees so I could save money before going to graduate school, pay for application fees, and take the GRE. I worked for my university at the medical school doing admin work. The salary was $32,000 a year, but a few months in, we had to take 1 day a month furlough due to the financial crisis and budget cuts. I was very lucky to even have gotten this job as many of my friends who also graduated in 2009 were not able to find jobs after graduation. I also tutored SAT and made $400 a month (which was my rent at the time! I split a 2 bedroom 1 bath with 3 other guys!). I was able to save $10,000 for grad school and go on two big trips the summer before my PhD.
2010-2015: During my PhD program I earned between $1400 and $1800 a month for 9 months (summers are not typically paid). In a given year this was less than $20,000. For some summers, I was able to find a research job. I lived in university housing and paid about $630 for my room in a 3 bedroom 2 bath student housing.
2015-2016: Upon graduating with my PhD I did a postdoc at the university where I got my undergrad degree from. This paid $59,000 a year. This is actually very high for my field. Typical postdocs in my field are closer to $40,000-$50,000 a year (for reference, my field is Education).
2016-2019: I worked at a research center on campus affiliated with my postdoc. My starting salary was $64,000 and got a 3% merit raise every year for 3 years (the merit raise was technically a cost of living raise). I think I ended up making $72,000 only because I asked for my title to be changed. I was severely underpaid (I would say by $20K) in this position compared to other colleagues, which I was able to look up because salaries at public universities are public. I brought this up to management and was put in a position where I basically needed to leave. I had applied to many jobs and was one of the last 2 candidates for many positions, but never got an offer! I did get a verbal offer from one company but the next day was told that they actually did not have the budget for that position. I was in a very low place, to say the least.
Second half of 2019: I was extremely lucky to find a startup to consult for part-time for a few months. I charged $100 an hour. That brought my total income to $80,000 in 2019.
2020: A few months later, I got another full time consulting gig making $150 an hour for 5 months. In June of this year was when I really started my own consulting business in that I was looking to build a business with multiple clients instead of being a contract employee or “full time” at one place. I am in the field of education and during COVID Edtech has blown up. It was a rough few months of no projects but in just a few months was able to build up a full roster of clients. I made $180,000 this year and am so proud of this huge jump I made! I never thought this would be possible.
Assets and Debt
*note I have rounded balances to the nearest 1,000.
Retirement Balance
$63,000 in a roll over 401K (technically 403B) from my previous job. I worked for 3 years (+1 if you count postdoc) at a university. Mandatory 7% contribution with 7% match. I additionally contributed 5%.
$41,000 in my self 401K. $1,500 in an individual Roth. My goal is to contribute $20,000 a year to my self 401K.
$22,000 iIn Roth IRA contributions from previous years contributions that I finally invested this year. Before it was sitting in CDs (how dumb of me!). Part if this was from that initial $10,000 I had saved for grad school and part with money I had saved from working.
Equity if you're a homeowner (and how much you put down and how you accumulated that payment).
Put down $225,000 (20%) on a multi family home. The house has 3 units. Most of it was from my mother. She is of the mindset that it is better to get an inheritance now that can be invested than to get it later. Some of this from a college fund that I didn’t use all of. $707,000 left to pay on the mortgage. Value is around $1.8 Million (according to my realtor last year).
Savings account balance
$20,000 in an emergency fund. This is split between my personal savings and my business account. I saved this in 2020.
$20,000 in savings for downpayment for a single family home. I am hoping to save a total of $100,000. I saved this in 2020.
$3,000 in a travel and sinking fund. Because I do not get paid on a regular schedule, I like to keep more here so that I can transfer this to my checking account when needed. I saved this in 2020.
$12,000 in my tax fund. I set aside 30% of income I receive in a separate account for taxes. For 5 months this year I worked as a contractor and received a W2 and taxes were already taken out. I have paid quarterly taxes this December and am keeping this in case I need to pay more come April.
Investment accounts (non retirement)
$6,100 in my stocks. This changes from day to day. I have amazon, uber, target, zoom, and tesla stock. I only started investing late 2019 and 2020.
$25,000 spread across a few ETFs. VTSAX FTW! $9,000 of this I had invested in 2019 and the rest was from 2020.
$2,000 in an HSA. I should have contributed all the years I was eligible but only contributed the last one at my job when I had a high deductible plan. I wish I had a high deductible plan now because this is such a good place to invest.
Checking account balance
$800 in my main checking account
$100 in a secondary checking account.
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it)
none pay this off in full every month.
Student loan debt (for what degree)
None. My undergrad psych degree was paid for with the money I got from my dad’s social security payment when we passed away when I was 13.
My PhD in Education was paid for through research assistantships and teaching assistantships (this is very typical of PhD programs. If you have to pay tuition, I suggest you do not attend that program).
Anything else that's applicable to you
Additional debt is my car. I have a $504 monthly car payment that will end in October. The interest rate is .99% so I don’t think it makes sense for me to pay this off any sooner. I purchased a used luxury car with very low mileage. Put 12K down and financed the rest over 4 years. I’ve had the car for almost 4 years and it still has less than 25K miles on it. I’m sure she will last me at least another 10 years.
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
This is a difficult one to answer. Since I own my own business, I do not get a regular monthly or biweekly paycheck. Some clients I charge monthly per hour (where hours vary from month to month) and some clients pay by deliverable. In December 2020 I made $21,000, in November I made $1,100, and in October I made $26,000. This is all pretax as I am responsible for paying my own taxes. In the year 2020, I will have made about $180,000.
Any Other Monthly Income Here
Yes. I am a landlady and the property I own has 3 units. I house hack, meaning that I live in one unit and rent out the other 2 units for $6,450 (total). This covers my mortgage, property taxes, and other expenses (maintenance, the plumber, who I did have to call this week). I keep any income generated from rent in a separate account and do not use it for personal use.
EXPENSES
Yearly expenses
Property Taxes: ~$17,000 a year. This is typically covered by what is leftover from monthly rent from my tenants. There are a few times where I’ve had to contribute to this from my own savings but have been lucky that my tenants have been able to pay rent this year..
Car registration: $322
Vespa registration: $70 (I think? I purchased this in 2020 and had to pay taxes on the purchase price to the DMV. This was rolled in with the registration)
Vespa insurance: $592.76. This is a lot in my opinion and unfortunately could not be combined with my car and house insurance.
Business expenses: In 2020, I spent $5,000 on my business. $500 is for business insurance. The other $4500 includes things like domain names, website hosting, squarespace account, etc. I also paid someone to help me with my website copy and marketing materials. I think this will stay the same or go up in 2021. I am thinking about ways to outsource some of what I do so I can bring in more clients and focus less time on social media, blogpost writing, and more time on the actual research.
Ring yearly plan: $30
Monthly expenses
*below are expenses associated with my house account that I do not pay for with the income listed above.
Mortgage: $3,700 a month. This is covered and then some by the rent I receive from my tenants.
Electricity: $50. This is for my apartment as well as the common area of my property
Gas: $120 (this is for my apartment and another apartment I rent out). This is on the high end… california winter. In the summer it is closer to $30.
Water: $140. This is for the whole property.
*starting here are expenses that come out of my personal accounts
Home & car insurance: $367 a month (this includes my car and my home since they are bundled). I also pay an additional $200 a year for umbrella insurance (I still don’t know exactly what this is, but it is apparently important to have).
Health insurance: $484.07 a month. I purchase my own through Covered California.
Savings:
Because I do not get paid regularly and think of my savings across a whole year. I would like to save 20K a year in my self 401K. I am also saving up for a downpayment for a house and would like to save 60K in 2021. I try to save a bit for other investments like $500 here and there in ETFs, or if there is a particular stock I want to buy. Right now, however, I am prioritizing saving for a down payment.
Debt payments: Just my mortgage and my car ($504 a month. This will be paid off in October 2021).
Donations: $50 to Planned Parenthood monthly recurring donation. I also contribute to other organizations like wikimedia, Upward Bound House, my friend’s theatre group, and the LA Food Bank. Basically anything that pops up in my inbox. My donations for 2020 totalled $1,300. I do some volunteering with a local homeless group but this is only a few times a year. Now that I have a better idea of my income while self employed, I do plan on upping this to $2K in 2021.
Wifi: $74.99 a month
Cellphone: $0 for me, My mom and I are on a family plan and she pays for this.
Subscriptions: LA times ($7.96). For entertainment, my friend and I split a lot of subscriptions. I pay for netflix ($12.99), spotify ($14.99), and sundance ($6.99 this is just temporary for 2 months for us to watch our favorite show Riviera), my friend pays for hulu and hbo. I use my mom’s amazon prime account.
Gym membership; cancelled due to COVID. Not sure yet if I will restart this.
Pet expenses: none
Therapy: $150 a month. I have a virtual session every other week and pay out of pocket for this.
At the end of each day please tally up your daily expenses. Then at the end of your diary please tally up all expenses in the following categories:
Sunday
7:30am - I have a really hard time sleeping in even on the weekends
9:00am- my boyfriend is still in bed so I decide to try to get some work done for a client from bed.
10:15am- boyfriend still sleeping. Decide to take a shower.
11:30am- boyfriend finally wakes up! We have coffee, lounge a bit.
1:00pm- take my BF home. He lives about 5 miles from me. Really nice to get out of the house and take a drive. Wanted to drop something off at the UPS store and realized they are closed on Sundays!
2:30pm- finally make myself some breakfast. Yummy breakfast sandwich (an egg and a sausage on bread with mustard). Watch a bit of my show on HBO. Watching season 2 of My Brilliant Friend. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED the books and am really digging the series. The characters look exactly how I imagine them from the book.
3:30pm- still nothing exciting happening. Took out the trash cans, vacuumed, wrote my schedule for the week on my white board in my office, did some work, browsed online a bit.
5:30pm- making breaded chicken fingers in the air fryer and sauteeing up some kale! Enough for lunch tomorrow.
7:00pm- watched Charade
9:00pm- in bed and scrolling through the trying for a baby subreddit. My BF and I have been TTC for a couple of months now. I know these things take time and I probably shouldn’t spend so much time on the internet googling my symptoms.
Monday
6:20am- alarm set for 6:20. So far during the pandemic, I haven’t been setting an alarm and will wake up anytime between 6am and 7am naturally. I am naturally an early bird. Did a 40 minute yoga session from the app Downward Dog. I look at my checking account and see that I’ve received $430 from the government in stimulus money. I have been wanting to donate more this year so research organizations to give to. Donate $200 to Upward Bound House and $200 to the local theatre. Also make my own hemp milk in the blender for my matcha latte.
8:00am- start getting some work stuff together. Create invoices for 2 clients. I have a call with a potential client at 9:30 and need to brush up on what we spoke about last. In my field, a lot of organizations get funding through grant competitions. We are the finalists for one and they would like me to be one of the presenters! Eeek. Get an email that the yoga app I have been using is only $14.99 for the year so purchase that
8:40am time for my second matcha latte.
9:30am meeting with a client
9:50- meeting ended early. My best friend who is in another country right now wants to vid chat. We chat for about 10 minutes
10:15am- getting hungry! Heated up the chicken fingers from last night
11:00-12:30- run some errands. Get my Vespa looked at. It was acting weird a few months ago and now we can’t recreate the problem. Go to the postoffice to send my friend’s xmas gift. $11.04
12:30 continue working
4pm- heating up the last of my chicken fingers! Looks like i’m having a super early dinner today.
5pm- lost a little steam. Did a 10 minute ab workout. Loaded the dishwasher. On the computer now trying to do more work.
6:00-6:45pm- spent some time decluttering and listing items on Poshmark. I really am on a mission to declutter as much clothing as possible and only keep the things I love and feel confident in. I get a lot of things second hand from my mom so it is hard for me to part with stuff because I think of it as her stuff. But this past month I have really focused on figuring out my personal style and how I want to dress (thank you pinterest for helping me).
7-8pm did work for an hourly client
8pm- veg time and my eventual bedtime.
Total= $426.03
Tuesday
6:20- read news, don’t get out of bed until 6:45. Empty the dishwasher. Do a 35 minute yoga session. Shower.
8:05- working! Some work for an hourly project. Our meeting is at 9am this morning.
11:30- meeting ended early! Going to make some lunch! Rice bowl with eggplant, kale, sausage and egg on top! My tenant reported that her kitchen sink is leaking so I called the plumber.
1:30- took the vespa to fedex to print documents ($1.08). Stopped by the gas station to fill up ($4.05). Came home, packed items, and walked to the post office to drop things off in the mailbox.
2:15pm- back at my desk to work.
4:30pm- just ended a meeting with my business partner. Hoped on a video call with my BF. He is coming over tomorrow.
5:30pm- start making dinner. Meatballs (with turmeric and chickpea flour!) rice, radish
6:30-7pm- hop on a call with my friend in singapore
7pm- I pull the trigger and purchase an 8 week coaching class with Melissa Le Man ($290). I have been following her on snapchat and her clients have great results! This might be categorized as lifestyle creep, but I’m at a point where I do not want to spend mental energy trying to decide what to eat or how to work out. Once I fill out her intake form and take before pictures she will email me an eating and workout plan within a week.
Total- $295.13
Wednesday
6:10- wake up a bit before my alarm. Read the news. Go on Target to purchase dumbbells and food scale I need for my training. I opt for picking up items from two locations.
7:45am- take my “before” pictures to send to the trainer. I also finish filling out her intake questionnaire about my goals and lifestyle and eating habits.
9:20- have 10 minutes before my next meeting. What do I do?? Trying to be more consistent in writing blogposts.10 minutes of writing is better than 0 minutes!
10:50- finished a call and some emails. Time to eat!
11-12:30- went to target to pick up my order ($45.14) and went grocery shopping ($90.88). I go grocery shopping once a week and some weeks it is on the higher side (like this bill) and some on the lower.
I know I’m going to get some hate for venturing out of my house but I honestly don’t want to rely on delivery anymore. It is so wasteful. Yes, I could have all these things delivered to me and not leave the house, but I would still be putting work on others.
12”50pm Did some laundry, changed my sheets. Start working from working from bed. I am exhausted today.
Following the shit show of what is happening at the White House
2:30pm- the plumber is here. I wasn’t expecting him until tomorrow! Also on the phone with my BF about insurance. He is a contractor and decided to purchase his own health insurance. The day is going by so quickly and haven’t gotten as much done as I had hoped. It’s just been one of those days.
4:30pm- meeting ended early. Folding laundry, cleaned the bathroom.
5:00pm- back on computer to send a few emails.
5:30pm- start cooking dinner. BF on his way over.
9:00pm- pass out super early
Total: $136.02
Thursday
6:30am- set my alarm for 7:30 but up at 6:30. Feel so much more rested than yesterday
8am- advisory board meeting
11am- meeting with a potential client
12pm- BF is making us a nice brunch! Omelettes with sausage and bread!
2pm- my BF got me a TV for xmas!!!!!!!!! Best Buy cancelled the TV that was supposed to be delivered so we go to Best Buy to pick it up (they come out to the car to deliver it). Then we go to Target (a different location from here I was earlier in the week) to pick up my second set of weights for my personal coaching ($47.07).
3:30pm get home, BF sets up TV, I go back to work
5:30 I am crazy hungry and pick up pizza for us. $54.71 (includes 20% tip).
Fall asleep around 9:30pm
Total: $101.78
Friday
6:30am - wake up again before my alarm. Do some emails, read the news
8:00am- Go on my Friday bike ride! This is about 10 miles total on a nice bike path from my house to the beach. Listen to You’re Wrong About podcast. The bike ride really helps me clear my head and am excited because not many people are out
9:05 am. Get back, shower. BF brings coffee.
10:05am meeting and NON STOP WORK UNTIL 5:30pm. It was a crazy busy day for me today with a last minute project that got added. Luckily we have leftover pizza for lunch! And the CSA box my friend gave me as an xmas gift arrived! Totally forgot this was coming or else I would’ve bought less veggies at the store. Freeze the spinach for my smoothies, and rinse, trim, and freeze the strawberries from the grocery store.
5:45pm- BF makes dinner!
7:30pm- in bed watching My Brilliant Friend on HBO. Finished season 2.
I think I passed out at 9:30 or so.
Saturday
6am- no alarm why am I up? Lounge in bed, go on youtube and snap chat. Do a 40 minute yoga session on Downward Dog app. Eat some leftover pizza.
10am- have a call with a family friend. I am actually hoping I can hire her to help me with some of my work.
11:15am- have a call with my business partner for a grant that we are helping a client put together
12:00pm- pop in some laundry then my BF and I head in the car to pick up sandwiches from a place that he loves. Hot pastrami sandwich for me. He pays. We eat the sandwiches on the curb outside by the parked car.
2:00pm get home, chill for the rest of the day and evening. Fold laundry, vacuum, watch Wonder Boys, watch a lot of youtube, basically enjoying the TV and I pass out at 9pm.
Totals
Food + Drink- $145.62
Fun / Entertainment- $0
Home + Health- $392.20
Clothes + Beauty = $0
Transport = $4.05
Other: $412.12
Total: $953.99
Lastly, reflect on your diary!
This was not a typical week for me in terms of spending since I did make donations and paid for private coaching and workout equipment. I was pretty drained and exhausted this week. I didn’t really take a break from working over the holidays and I think it is finally catching up to me. I also ventured out of my house more in the past week than I have in the last few weeks combined. It was really nice to feel like I was actually doing something and not just suck at home. I also ate way more meat this week than I usually do.

Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $6215 between a 403b & a 401a. I work for a university, and with this employer was the first time I was financially able to contribute to a retirement account of any kind. I just hit vestment in 2020 and plan to bump up my contribution % slowly throughout 2021 until I hit the maximum I can afford to contribute.
Savings account balance: $3201. Up until 2020, I never had any extra money to put into savings, so I'm not at all upset about this amount! Building up my savings account is my biggest financial priority currently.
Checking account balance: $1706. I keep between $1-2k in checking.
Acorns investment account balance: $74 (just started this in December, only throw in a little bit monthly, not too sure what I'm doing but I'm eager to learn, lol)
FSA account balance: $55. I contribute $5 per paycheck (biweekly), but I will be increasing this when I can make changes to my benefits, at the beginning of the new fiscal year in July.
Credit card debt: $0, but see below regarding a personal loan. I pay off my balance every month.
Student loan debt: $32,417 for a BS. Most of my schooling was covered by scholarships & grants, but I had to take out loans for whatever was left. My parents cosigned my loans, but I am fully responsible for paying them. In 2020, I finished paying off approx $11k in private loans; the remaining amount is all in federal loans.
Personal loan debt: $5532. This had been money owed on my credit card - a few very expensive car repairs years ago, and then compounding interest because I could only make minimum payments for a long time. In 2020, I was able to get a low-interest personal loan through my credit union and plan to pay this off by 10/2022.
​
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I have had quite a few jobs, most of them making slightly above minimum wage until just the last few years. In high school & college, I worked at a bowling alley and in retail, making from $7.25/hour to $8/hour, anywhere from 4 hours weekly (high school) to full-time (college during summer break).
After graduating college, I continued to work the 2 part-time retail jobs I'd been working for most of my college career: one position as a sales associate for $7.50/hour and one position as a front-end manager for $10/hour. I worked around 50 hours total each week in order to make ends meet.
After 2 years of this, I went to grad school. I was fully funded by my PhD advisor's grant and did not need to take out any loans. I worked as a research assistant on campus making $1850 per month.
Grad school wasn't for me, so I dropped out after one semester. I returned to one of my previous retail employers, this time as a full-time assistant store manager, making $11/hour.
After about 1 year at this position, I took a job working part-time for a local science museum - I had experience in college volunteering and interning in science education, and at the time I thought it was the direction I wanted to go for a "real" career. This job paid $10/hour. I dropped down to part-time at the retail job but was able to keep my hourly pay.
Then, about 1 year later, I finally fell into the job I have now, and love: I got a job in 2017 working as an assistant lab tech in medical research at a local university. Starting out, my title was Technician 1, and I made $25k. I was promoted to Tech 2 in 2019, making $28k, and then to Senior Tech in 2020 with a salary of $38,493. The large raise between Tech 2 and Senior is partially due to me obtaining some professional certifications in my field; without them, I expect my salary would be closer to $35k. I still work in retail, too: 1 day per week at $11.10/hour. I don't NEED that job now, but the extra money is nice - I make around $4600 yearly from the retail job.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
$2200 minimum. This is highly variable as I am eligible for OT pay and I do work OT most weeks.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home
About $300 monthly from the retail job. Variable depending on how many hours I work in the month.
​
Section Three: Expenses
All expenses below are monthly unless otherwise specified.
Rent: $630
Renters insurance: $10
Investment contribution: $20 plus spare change to the Acorns app. I just started using it last month.
Personal loan payment: $273
Student loan payment: $84, but I need to renew my income-based repayment plan and I expect this to increase
Electric: approx $50
Gas: approx $70 during winter; in summer it's around $20
Water: $17
Trash collection: $195 annually
Sewage: $42 quarterly
Wifi: $68
Cellphone: I'm on a family plan with my parents and brother, and my contribution is $25.
Subscriptions: $10 for Spotify & Hulu; $14 for Netflix; $15 for a coffee subscription
Pet expenses: Approx $100 monthly. I have two cats that eat prescription diets ($75 every 6 weeks), plus one axolotl that thankfully just eats worms. The rest of the pet budget is for litter, toys, etc, and I'm including birdseed here for the feeder I have on my balcony for wild birds.
Car payment / insurance: My car is fully paid off, and my parents pay for my insurance which is honestly wild at my age, but I think they like to help out in this way since I'm otherwise pretty independent.
Medications: $68
Other: I budget $200 for groceries monthly, though I'm not upset if I go over that amount.
​
Diary
Disclaimer: I am an essential employee at both jobs; masks and other appropriate PPE were worn at all times outside of my home.
Saturday 1/2: I wake up at 4:15am to go to my retail job. I don't mind being up so early since it means I don't have to interact with customers for most of my shift. My car has been making some odd noises lately, and they start up again on my drive in to work. I need to get the car inspected this month, so I decide to try to make an appointment for next weekend...the noises are making me nervous. I work an 8 hour shift and buy a few snacks and two sodas from the vending machine ($6.70). After work, I play some video games. A close friend got the new PS5 recently and gave me her old PS4, which is awesome - I've only had an old Xbox until now. I decide to buy Skyrim for the PS since it keeps crashing when I try to play it on the Xbox ($16.95 on a gift card I'd gotten for Christmas). Later this evening, my pharmacy calls to tell me that the manufacturer of one of my medications is no longer offering a discount I'd been using for the last year: my cost will be increasing by $30 per month supply. I check online for any other discounts/coupons/goodRX offers.. no dice. I'm asleep by 10pm.
Total: $6.70 (not counting the gift card purchase, since that was already paid for by someone else)
Sunday 1/3: My day off! I wake at 6:15 and make some coffee. I place an Amazon order for a new shower curtain, rubber beads to tighten face masks, and a supplement ($25.57). Later in the day, I head out to pick up my prescription. I buy 3 months' worth of this particular medication at once, so it's $120; I also buy some coffee creamer and milk ($4.28). I stop for gas on my way home ($25.04). I spend the rest of my day alternately relaxing and getting some things done at home: I do some laundry ($2.25), renew my drivers license online (no need to go to the DMV because of the pandemic, so yay! $30.50 and they'll mail my new card), and I create a group on Goodreads because my friends and I were wanting to start our own book club this year. I make a big pot of pasta with Beyond crumbles and spinach for dinner and a few lunches for the week.
Total: $207.64
Monday 1/4: Wake at 5. Car is still making scary noises, so I drive to work slowly. $5 for parking, but it will be reimbursed by my employer at the end of the month. Drink breakroom coffee since it's free. On lunch, I make the appointment for my car for the weekend: inspection, oil change, tire rotation, and please make sure my car isn't trying to kill me/fix the mystery noise. Yesterday's pasta and a yogurt for lunch. Work is uneventful; at home I eat some soup for dinner and read some of my book for book club until it's time for bed.
Total: $5
Tuesday 1/5: It's my birthday! I'm up at 5. $5 for parking, and free work coffee again. My supervisors and coworkers printed & signed a giant birthday poster for me - it's hanging in our breakroom - and it makes my week! I really, really love my job and the people I work with. At home, I consider buying some perfume for myself - indie fragrances are a hobby of mine - but I get overwhelmed and decision fatigued, and don't end up buying anything. I decide to take another look over the weekend. Make rice & daal for dinner, plus a giant bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Watch some tv (Bones on Hulu) until bed.
Total: $5
Wednesday 1/6: You know the drill: wake up at 5, $5 parking, and free work coffee. Leftover rice & daal for lunch. Received a birthday present from a coworker that I'm good friends with, which is incredibly kind of her. Again, I love, love, love my job and the people I spend time with there. Unfortunately, after work I spend most of my evening doom-scrolling thanks to the attempted coup at the Capitol.
Total: $5
Thursday 1/7: Up at 5; $5 parking; free coffee at work. Today's a super busy day and I spend most of it just running around, feeling like I'm not getting any actual work done. While at work I start listening to a new audiobook from the library (I highly recommend the Libby app, btw). The last of Sunday's pasta for lunch. Soup and crackers for dinner, and then my older cat cuddles up on my lap while I play some Skyrim.
Total: $5
Friday 1/8: I took today as a vacation day for my birthday - had too much to do at work on my actual birthday, so I gave myself a long weekend instead (I also took Saturday 1/9 off from my retail job). I sleep in until 7... super late for me! Make coffee for breakfast, and while it's brewing, I fill up the birdfeeder on my balcony. Perform a feat of gymnastics to keep my cats from running out while I do so. I received my $600 stimulus payment a week ago, and I take the morning to deal with that: $120 is split among 3 charities that are important to me, and the remaining $480 goes to my savings account. After this, I'd love to get up to get my book club book to read, but I've got a cat sleeping on my legs, so obviously I'm stuck sitting. I browse Reddit on my phone for a while. Order food for lunch with contactless dropoff ($17.44 with tip). In the evening, I drop off my car at the auto shop - my appointment is early tomorrow morning, so I just leave the car and keys with them overnight - and I walk home since the shop is in my neighborhood. I've been wanting to try punch needle crafting, so I buy a very basic starter kit on Amazon ($13.99).
Total: $151.43
Week Total = $385.77
Food + Drink $28.42
Fun / Entertainment $13.99
Home + Health $147.82
Transport $45.04
Other Donations: $120; $30.50 for the driver's license renewal
So, this was not a typical week for me: the $120 prescription is a purchase I make once every 90 days, the driver's license renewal is only once every 4 years (lol), and I'm not a regular charitable donor - I donate sporadically throughout the year whenever I have some extra money. However, I'm pretty happy with my spending otherwise! The $20 in parking fees will be reimbursed by my employer at the end of the month, and though I made more Amazon purchases in this week than I would in a normal week, I think I was reasonable with my spending. Pre-covid, my coworkers from my main job and I would go out for drinks on Fridays, so I guess I've been saving an extra $20-30/week since the pandemic started. Also, in case anyone was wondering - the mechanic found nothing wrong with my car, but it's still making a weird noise. They told me that I basically have to wait until it gets worse, and maybe then they can determine what the issue is. Yay.

Artist: Aesop Rock
Album: Spirit World Field Guide
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Background by ItsBigVanilla
Aesop Rock probably wouldn't want you to know his real name. Despite the rapper's current standing as underground legend and collaborator extraordinaire, he's never quite been the approachable type. He doesn't revel in the obscurity of an MF DOOM or a Billy Woods – in fact, he's much more candid and intimate with his audience than either of them – but he is, decidedly, not an extrovert, either. A rare sight in the age of digital promotion, he prefers to use his social media as a journal, documenting his art and travels as he sees fit, and he keeps the conversation one-way by restricting his (obsessive, devoted) fanbase from commenting or interacting, even on news such as album announcements. He's had a multi-decade career and he boasts the biggest vocabulary in rap, but he's never been one to brag or adopt the typical look-at-me rapper posture. This shouldn't be mistaken for humility; rather, he's a proud introvert, a loner who picks pizza and pot over people and pictures, 10 times out of 10. So yes, sure, he's willing to give us glimpses into who he is, but only to a certain extent. It's a tightrope act: we know Aesop Rock the figure, the only rap GOAT who has walked the animal's walk (i.e. sleeping in a barn and eating trash) - but what can we learn about Aesop Rock, the man? I'd wager that most of his fans don't even know that he was born Ian Bavitz, in New York, 1976.
Ian was a middle child, sandwiched between two brothers whom he would immortalize in a song when he was 42 years old. By all accounts, he lived a normal, white, Catholic, nuclear, American life: bright kid (I assume), loved to skateboard, graduated high school at 18, studied visual arts at Boston University, picked up a bachelor's degree, even married a nice girl somewhere along the line (the exact “somewhere” is unclear, even on the mystical, all-knowing Internet, as is the date of their eventual divorce). To all concerned parties, he had no good reason to run off and become a rapper.
But run he did. As he made his way through school, Ian developed a passion for music. He inherited his older brother's punk rock taste – New York, riotous, Dead Kennedys, mosh pits before they called them mosh pits – but he also had an ear for hip-hop, which genre he followed from its infancy. And like every white boy does when he grows up on Run-DMC and Beastie Boys, Ian decided that he, too, might be good at that. Fashioning himself Aesop Rock, he started recording tracks while making his way through college, tapping into the creative energy of his friend Tony Simon, who would remain a steadfast collaborator for years, producing for him to this day. Tony – aka Blockhead – worked with Aes and producer Dub-L, and together they released Music for Earthworms in 1997, one year before graduation.
The album showed promise, and although it didn't propel anyone's career straight out of the gates, it signaled the start of something long-lasting and exciting. Aes and Blockhead followed it up two years later with Appleseed, an EP that highlighted their chemistry, expanded on their strengths, and attracted label attention. The label in question – Mush Records (which also released some early Busdriver albums) – offered him a deal, and in 2000, he released his official debut album, Float.
On Float, a sprawling, uneven record, Aes continued to throw everything at the wall to see what stuck. It's an album that, two decades later, feels charmingly dated, but it holds up in a way that many early-2000s indie rap projects don't. For a few long-gone New York rappers of that era, it would have been the high point of a career - but Aesop Rock was still just dipping his toes. And then he signed to Def Jux.
Definitive Jux should require no introduction, but alas. The label was (or still is, some argue) a New York-based collective co-founded by legendary rappeproducer El-P. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, Def Jux existed at the fringes of rap, releasing some of the most innovative, forward-thinking, and downright strangest music in the history of the genre. The label's roster reimagined New York as a gritty dystopia on now-classic albums like Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein and El-P's Fantastic Damage, which sound just as uncompromisingly fresh today as they did upon release. These albums, as well as those of artists like Mr. Lif, Cage, and RJD2, flipped the foundations of hip-hop on their ass, exposing a gleaming robotic underbelly of bizarre, creative energy and ambition, free from the constraints of any sort of mainstream attention. While the label hasn't been active since 2010 (good things, of course, never last), Def Jux represented a major moment for underground rap, which means that it represented a major moment for rap, full stop. This was Aesop Rock's moment.
Aes became involved with Def Jux shortly after releasing Float, signing with them as he worked on his next full-length project. He thrived in this space, both personally and creatively, forging close relationships with El-P and labelmate Camu Tao while collaborating with them - as both rapper and producer - on numerous tracks. Fans familiar with Aes's 2020 persona recognize the irregularity of this period – a time in which the rapper was anything but a loner, a time where the report card might have read “works well with others.” Experimenting within a bubble of oddball brilliance may have been the push that he needed to tap into his own potential, and in barely any time at all, he made his mark as an artist with the just-seven-days-after-9/11 release of his first Def Jux album, Labor Days.
Labor Days is the work of a rapper whose head is bursting with ideas, ideas that must be crammed into the confines of a single record because the next one isn't promised. It's a young man's album – overlong and grossly ambitious – but that of a young man in complete control of his abilities, and one whose talents run at a higher voltage than most others'. To speak nothing of Aes's talent as a wordsmith (think “got stoned and read the dictionary”), Labor Days features a fascinating glimpse into the man that he would become, in the form of “No Regrets”. The track tells the tale of a girl named Lucy, who eschews almost all social interaction in favor of her art, taking a lover from a considerable distance, and eventually dying alone, surrounded by her work and completely satisfied with her accomplishments, unphased that the rest of the world sees her as an outcast. Should we view this as a metaphor for the rapper's own eventual isolation? He probably wouldn't want us to. He'd probably be uncomfortable with it.
That album has now reached cult classic status. It sent Aes's career into orbit (a small orbit full of skateboard gaming song placements and a fanbase of dedicated nerds), and cemented his place in the world of underground rap. It took him another two years to release another full-length, which came in the form of 2003's Bazooka Tooth, a concept(-ish) album where Aes reimagines himself as the titular super-loser, relaying stories of city living, drug use, and rap beef atop production that he mostly did himself. The album took his already cynical lyrical content to an even darker place, perhaps inspired by the rapper's own mental health at the time (this period clouded by unconfirmed reports of anxiety attacks/depression/a nervous breakdown). The years that followed saw Aes become further entrenched in Def Jux, featuring on members' projects and dropping the occasional EP, but he wouldn't release another album until 2007.
2007 was an epilogue for Aesop Rock. It was the year he released his last album for Def Jux, the last time he released a solo project with rap features and outside production, and the last year that Camu Tao would spend alive, before succumbing to lung cancer in 2008. It's a year that marks the beginning of a sea change in Aes's public persona, and a shift in the content of his art. So it's best first to focus on the album.
None Shall Pass is the culmination of a career spent learning and evolving. It remains Aesop Rock's most accessible album to date, but instead of sacrificing any of the rapper's esoteric sensibilities, it elevates them to a pitch-perfect sweetness: listeners might not catch exactly what he's saying, but they hum along regardless. Aes shared production duties with Blockhead in almost equal measure, and the chemistry between the pair shines throughout each track. The album was a success: dense enough to satisfy hardcore fans, yet fun enough to attract hordes of new followers. It was Aes's biggest and best album yet, and it felt like he had nowhere to go from here but up. So naturally, he went down.
In short, Camu died, Def Jux fell apart, and Aesop Rock didn't release a solo album for another 5 years. In some ways, there's not much else that feels comfortable to say about this period, because Aes keeps pointedly silent about it when he isn't in the booth. There are rumors – fans whisper of a falling out with El-P over how to handle Camu's unreleased music – but not much is definitively known, except that the frequency of material released during this period is considerably lower than any period before, or after, it. If we extrapolate from lyrics and interviews, we can piece together one major component: Aesop Rock and Camu Tao were great friends, and watching Camu deteriorate took a massive toll on Aes's mental health. He became depressed, unable to maintain regular relationships, and he disengaged from the crumbling label he had spent the last decade of his life a member of. In 2012, El-P released an album, Cancer 4 Cure, dedicated to Camu. He sampled the late rapper's voice for the project's first and only single. It was his first studio album not to feature a verse from Aesop Rock. Aes had other plans.
In 2012, he released a solo album, Skelethon, his first on the label Rhymesayers Entertainment, to which he is still signed today. The project was, for the first time in his career, entirely self-produced, and arguably bleaker than any of his past material. It's an album that embodies what makes Aes unique: playful songs about haircuts and eating veggies (which are clearly inspired by featured anti-folk legend Kimya Dawson) line a tracklist that's full of brutal introspection, concluding with “Gopher Guts”, the most painfully honest song he's ever written, a song about his utter failure to treat himself and others correctly, an admission that he is losing his battles with personal demons. Skelethon marked another career shift, into a level of insularity and reflection that he had not shown previously. The album's legacy shines still: it is fully realized, meticulously crafted, a masterpiece.
And it wasn't the only one. After a four year period and some loose material, 2016 saw the release of The Impossible Kid, another completely self-produced project with even less outside assistance than the last one (not a feature in sight). What's immediately striking about the album is its clarity: Aes traded in (most of) his lyrical maximalism for something more easily digestible, and a few confessional tracks can even be made sense of on first listen, specifically “Get Out of the Car”, which directly addresses the pain and loneliness he felt after Camu's death. We take a funhouse tour through the labyrinth of his personal life, some of which might be troubling if they weren't so on-brand (getting a therapy cat, living in a barn, feeling like an old man at a juice shop, etc.). Moreso than anything he had released thus far, The Impossible Kid solidified his status as a loner, a pot-smoking homunculus who prefers the company of animals to humans, and who, against all odds, is one of the most talented rappers of all time. (Not to interject, but this is my pick for best Aesop Rock album, and it's the one that confirmed his spot as my favorite rapper.)
But Aesop Rock cannot be defined by his solo albums alone. In addition to the fantastic career he's built on his own merit, he's also an ambitious collaborator. He's released two albums alongside Rob Sonic as one half of Hail Mary Mallon, a group just dumb enough to structure a project around a fundraiser-concert-to-save-a-bowling-alley narrative. He's teamed up with Homeboy Sandman to release the Lice trilogy, a perfect series of EPs packed with enough one-liners to make Bruce Willis sweat. He even rapped alongside Kimya Dawson on Hokey Fright: released under the moniker The Uncluded, it's a mix of anti-folk and geek rap, and it tackles subjects such as laundry, organ donors, and sandwiches. It might be the strangest piece of work that either artist has ever been part of, and it's especially notable because the pair's goofy musical chemistry flies in the face of the current personal animosity between them. In a revealing series of statements (as well as a song), Dawson has accused Aes of emotional abuse and manipulative behavior during their time together (fans were initially unaware of a relationship). These allegations aren't particularly surprising given the rapper's own admissions of similar behavior, but they do highlight the reality of his situation: the more insular and elusive he becomes, the more his mythology deepens. Even revelations of alleged shittiness feed into his carefully cultivated persona, and although fans condemn his actions, they're not exactly unexpected.
His most recent project is 2019's Malibu Ken, another collaboration, this time with producer Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow. It's a psychedelic trip into Aes's mind, and it demonstrates that he doesn't have to have full complete creative control to make great music. It's packed to the brim with the humor and wit we've come to expect, and it advances the personal, self-deprecating narrative that's been woven throughout the last eight year's slew of material. However, even though it's a full-length album, it felt like a minor release upon arrival - something perhaps less spectacular than usual - and fans wondered what else was in store for the future. Now, just one year later, we find out.
Review by ItsBigVanilla
Rap is a young man’s genre. It’s a world full of masculinity, braggadocio, and sexual feats that the oldheads just can’t pull off anymore. Hip-hop has been getting louder, crankier, and more aggressive with age: if Phife Dawg were alive today, would he dare enter a rap show without earplugs? Rappers come with expiration dates: 20 is the new 30, and unless you’re one of the three 1980s-born artists we’ve allowed to top the charts, you’re a dinosaur. It’s a rule that some fading stars (who shall remain unnamed) have refused to accept, instead grasping at youth in a last ditch, gray-hair-died-black attempt to reclaim the glory that they lost before some current hit-makers were even out of diapers (it’s Eminem – I’m talking about Eminem). Even the most elegant transitions to the elder role, a la Jay-Z’s 4:44, are only possible in reference to a body of past work that is considered to be untouchable. And as much as we all claim to love the wizened perspectives of veteran rappers, let’s face it – nobody wants to hear Hov rap about his back problems.
In limps Aesop Rock, with a bucket of curly fries and a pocket full of arcade tokens. His career runs longer than most: his first album released 23 years ago, and since then he's been a fountain of material, dropping a steady stream of full lengths and EPs across a discography littered with both solo and collaborative efforts. The mid-40s rapper has seemingly done it all, from the too-wordy street tales of his youth to the grim depths of brutal self-reflection and back again, settling into his current role as a lovable loser, stoned on the couch watching cartoons while his dusty phone rings off the hook. In 2005's “Facemelter” he proclaimed himself a “longevity veteran”: that was 15 years ago, only a third of the way to where he's at now. In this time he's amassed a fanbase devoted to dissecting his lyrics and speculating on his personal affairs, a fanbase so large and dedicated to supporting him that he can hardly be considered an underground artist anymore. Aesop Rock is a bona fide rap star – he's just spotlight-averse and happy to keep it to himself.
So how does a relatively low profile artist survive the gauntlet of a multi-decade rap career? Doesn't he run the risk of repeating himself, the fate-worse-than-death of descending into parody?
In short, yes.
It's no secret that Aesop Rock is a loner – he's been rapping about it for four presidential administrations. “Loser” is his M.O., his friendlessness makes us all feel like we're all his buddies, and despite his extraordinary musical abilities, he's spent years cultivating his image as an everyday slacker. He's been so successful from the fringes of the genre that he quite simply cannot claim to exist in the fringes of the genre anymore. It's the purest contradiction: he's an introvert, but he won't shut up about it. After 2019's (very good, but not quite up to par) Malibu Ken, this reviewer wondered: can a career like this survive, or is the formula bound to devolve into shtick?
Then, just one year later, Spirit World Field Guide arrives. At 21 tracks and 63 minutes, it's the rapper's longest album in 13 years (and fourth longest overall). Every track is self-produced, and only one (“Sleeper Car”) bears a co-producer credit. There are no skits or interludes past the intro, and, for the fourth album in a row, every verse is rapped entirely by Aesop Rock. By taking such complete control of his vision, Aes ensures that we're immersed in the world he's creating, and on this album especially, world-building is everything. As its title suggests, the project is structured to serve as a handbook for “all modern supernatural tourism” through the “spirit world”, a place of “unwavering otherness” that listeners may someday find themselves in. It becomes immediately clear – the theme isn't exactly subtle – that the world we're exploring is the rapper's own mind, a place of oddity and isolation, a phantom zone as full of adventure as it is divorced from reality. Bring on the eye rolls: just when he starts running the risk of beating a dead horse, Aesop Rock decides to make a concept album about it.
Rappers hate clear narratives. Adhering to a concept is difficult in any genre, but in one so wordy and full of distraction, the results are often less than cohesive. On such an ambitious undertaking, Aes could be forgiven for occasionally veering off-course, but instead, he spends each and every track building his universe from the ground up. After a brief and hypnotic introductory message in the form of a transmission from a spirit world traveler, we find ourselves at “The Gates”, a track that reintroduces us to the misfit we've come to love while cleverly delineating a physical starting point for our journey. In classic Aesop Rock fashion, it's brag rap about having nothing to brag about, sporting bars such as “I'm like Vincent Van with that instant rice” and “I don't stay for tea, I can't slow the code / I go coyote alone and ghost.” He's said it all before but it's still inimitable, and his flow has never sounded so technically perfect, so sure of itself over a beat that feels plucked out of a sci-fi arcade shooter. And with that, we're off. Welcome to the spirit world.
There's a lot to miss out on by half-listening to an album like this, but even the most cursory playthrough reveals that Aesop Rock has made astonishing progress as a producer over the last few years. The attention to detail rewards multiple spins: whether it's the Atari sounds that shape the wall of “Button Masher”'s Space Invaders-esque beat, or the subtle number-dialing effects that slide into the hook of “Jumping Coffin” as soon as Aes raps about “any kind of woo-woo tryna make a phone call”, there are so many production choices that serve conceptual and thematic purposes in addition to sounding great. Much like former collaborator El-P, Aes never lets his beats stagnate; instead, they're constantly shifting and evolving, introducing new elements between hooks or sometimes even within the span of a verse. Past projects may have seen the occasional beat switch, but never before has Aes been so sonically adventurous. From the mounting textures of “Pizza Alley” (complete with a glorious drum-dropping beat change) to the last-minute moodswitching of “Boot Soup” and “Coveralls”, the soundscape weaves and bobs, refusing to leave any room for boredom or repetition. Having self-produced his solo work since 2012, Aesop Rock deserves to be recognized as a visionary producer; this is the work of an artist talented enough to bring fantasies to life.
And those fantasies run deep. For all of its accomplishments, perhaps the most infectious thing about Spirit World Field Guide is just how packed to the brim it is with things that Aesop Rock loves. He's always been an animal lover – apparent from his album packaging to his merch to his lyrical content – but he's never managed to create a space so infested with critters. There are near-constant references to the fauna of the spirit world on each track (two of which are named after animals), and Aes is more likely to compare himself to a “deer in a scope” than to any of his peers. This is hardly gimmickry, as these references come to be greater than the sum of their parts, populating the album's human-averse universe with a menagerie of creatures both friend and foe. (Without peeking at any lyrics, I can think of mentions of horses, dogs, cats, flies, eels, fish, birds, dolphins, bats, wolves, and rats.)
Aes's preference for woodland pets over guest rappers isn't the only way he divorces his work from that of his peers. In fact, the Spirit World seems to exist in an entirely different decade than the rest of the genre. From the cheesy-80s-sci-fi-flick aesthetic of the album's music videos to the video game fetishism of its lyrical content (“I started spilling all my problems to the final boss / He shed a tear and let me by him like 'what's mine is yours'” on “Crystal Sword”), this project is more indebted to Sega and Ghostbusters than it is to anything to be found on Top 40 charts. Aes has been a student of rap since its birth, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when he samples Raekwon (“Straight up and down, don't even bother”) for a hook on “The Gates”, or weaves Ad-Rock's voice into a verse on “Salt”.He's utterly disinterested with the outside world, and even when he throws it a bone (i.e. a triplet flow at the ends of his verses on “Gauze”), we get the impression that he's only doing it to flex his muscles. The album feels like a throwback, albeit one that could have only been made by someone who's filtering his nostalgia through a time machine planted firmly in the future.
The result is something that we rarely find beyond rap's mainstream: an album brimming with pure fun. If it's a joy to listen to, that's because it feels like it was a joy to create. Late-stage Aesop Rock could easily phone in a few tracks every two years for a paycheck, but no - he refuses to kowtow to any will but his own. Every one of Spirit World's ingredients is something that he loves, and they come together to form a project that' feels like a personal victory lap: it's charmingly weird, infectiously confident, and as self-indulgent as a Tarantino movie.
Which isn't to say that there isn't a darkness lurking beneath the surface. Sprinkled throughout the tracklist are a few bite-sized songs, shorter than anything Aes has ever released in the past. These aren't merely interludes, they're the cracks in the walls of the Spirit World. On “Flies”, reality creeps through the facade, as Aes attempts to oust the horde of creatures infesting his drains, to no avail. “I'm clapping at the air, I'm cornered by the plates / I'm brought unto my knees, I'm forfeiting the space / I'm clawing at the walls, swarm ordering me ate / It's death from above, nobody saying grace”, he raps at the track's conclusion. It's funny in the same way that it was funny when he had a mushroom growing in his car, but it's also... a bit concerning. “1 to 10” is an ode to back pain that sounds like it's being rapped by a disappointed parent, or a man having his temperature taken – rectally. A bar like “Rate your pain level on a scale from one to ten / I said 'Well doc, I tell you, it feel like I lost a friend'” encapsulates the joylessness of middle-age, and if risks tiptoeing into dad-rap territory, it can be forgiven for its honesty. While these short detours feel like stares through the fourth wall, a few harsh moments of reflection seep into the longer tracks as well: when Aes raps about being the “architect of my Kodokushi”, what he's really saying is that he's created a life for himself that will result in a lonely death, one in which nobody will even find his corpse for days. Hiding a statement so grim behind a word that most of us won't understand without a Google search - and packing the whole thing into a one-liner – is enough to cause concern, especially considering that he said something pretty damn similar back in 2016. Just a few minutes later, Aes insists on “Marble Cake”, the true finale of the album (it was originally planned to be the final track), that he wants a death with no fanfare - “Y'all can feed me to the fucking pigs.” As much as he loves to couch these sentiments in snappy bars, they signal something else, a bleak cynicism that not even the fantasy of a Spirit World can obscure.
Yet overall, isn't this exactly what we've come to expect from Aesop Rock? Haven't we already seen him at his emotional worst on Skelethon, his most sentimental on The Impossible Kid, his weirdest on Malibu Ken? As enjoyable as these new tracks can be on their own, do they equate to a meaningful whole? Is there something fresh to be gained here, or is just Aes ushering in the new decade with a rehash of the last one?
(Side note: these are questions that I asked myself coming into this album, and I considered them every time I played it back. Aesop Rock is my favorite rapper, so I hold him to the highest standard; an artist's biggest fans should be the first ones to criticize them, and my conclusions are meant to reflect that.)
Spirit World Field Guide is a strong entry in the Aesop Rock catalog, and its high points stand among the best moments in the rapper's oeuvre. It's a culmination of the collection of skills he's acquired over the years, and it may offer a hint of things still yet to come. Aes sounds sure of himself in a way he never has before: he's mastering new flows, he's experimenting with production, and although he insists that he doesn't take himself too seriously, he really is gloating – 20 tracks, all by myself, not a skip in the bunch. He's perched atop the underground of rap, a veteran and a legend, and he knows it. It's a testament to his considerable greatness that an album released 23 years into his career feels almost like a greatest hits collection, and one that works perfectly as an entry point for new fans.
The Spirit World is more than just a half-assed metaphor, it's a living, breathing place. When Aes says “the river boils when it sees me”, then eight tracks later he's rapping about “river water that'll melt your fucking hands off”, it's because he's just as much an architect as he is a lyricist. It's truly remarkable that he can describe so much and never contradict himself, that he can drop 21 tracks and leave us wanting more, that he can rap forever and never spit a forgettable verse. This isn't an album, it's a bag of tricks: the paranoid storytelling of “Dog at the Door”, the double-time flow on “Gauze”, the 6/4 time signatures on “Side Quest”, the triumph of the synths that slide into the second half of the hook on “Holy Waterfall”, the crispness of the drums on every track – there's something new to fall in love with every time.
But when you're in Aesop Rock's position, a great album isn't always enough. This project represents the perfection of a formula, but the formula remains. Aes still mostly raps about being a loner, and while the sheer number of ways he's been able to revisit this idea is impressive, the content itself risks running thin. If this album is going to be remembered 10 years from now, it should be remembered as the end of an era – not as the moment a rapper became a caricature.
What keeps an artist great, decades into his career? If Aesop Rock wants to remain unique and compelling, to avoid treading the same waters twice, he will need to find ways to reinvent himself. He will need to capitalize on the experimentation of a Malibu Ken, or to expand on the introspection of an Impossible Kid, or perhaps to set his lyrical sights on something broader than himself. Maybe the coming years will see a more collaborative Aes lending his production skills to other rappers' work, or – heresy – even allowing them to feature on his. Hopefully some of the risks we're seeing him take with elements like song structure and time signatures will reappear in future projects. Spirit World Field Guide was originally supposed to be between 40 and 50 tracks; this might be feasible for the next one if Aes keeps his material as short and sweet as “Flies” or “1 to 10”. And call me crazy, but does anybody else wonder how he'd sound on a Griselda collab?
The possibilities are endless, and if the past is any indicator of what's to come, there will be surprises aplenty. On the album's final track, “The Four Winds”, Aes raps, “Baited adventuring out of his norm is a lesson in mapping the doors / Anything more in the lap of the gods, anything less an imbalance ignored.” I haven't figured out exactly what the hell it means, but I'm excited to find out.
Favorite Lyrics by ItsBigVanilla

Tangentially related in the sense of one's environment informing what they're made of
There was a ghost who broke it all up into tiny numbers
And dated vector graphics, and New York Times puzzles
Who struggled knowing love as more than boring data entry
More reported from an orbit all his own, to say it gently
I'm reporting from an orbit all my own, to say it gently

• “Button Masher”

What ship, what shore?
I grew up writing riddles under bridges in New York
Now I travel like a highwayman who whispers to his horse
Sharing stories out of winter, trying to trigger something pure

• “Pizza Alley”

No stacked sash or accolades from authority
The backstory gets all back-into-a-corner-y
Abuses in the feeding tube that circle back to eat at you
Bacteria that tip the hat, adversity that gleam the cube
It's tit for tat with slippery aristocrats who pity cops
And brilliant rats who find the grit to slip out of the Skinner box
The moat's supposed to keep the rivals out
The calls are coming from inside the house

• “Marble Cake”

Breaking out of that boarded house, faking normal has wore me down
Hit the road, an old misanthrope alone, tip me over and pour me out
Cozy up to that pressure cooker, my heart's a bottle, my head's a butcher
My blood a mix of both milk and sugar, I push the pencil, no pencil-pusher

• “Boot Soup”

I've been ignoring any semblance of relatable Earth
I got a homie from the region who could name every bird
And tell you what it is to wake up with a tank in the yard
Type of shit to make you question what your days even are
There's a holy waterfall where you could rinse and repeat
Find religion while the minnows eat the skin off your feet
If you wake me on a January morning at four
Don't get excited when I bark at the door

• “Holy Waterfall”
Discussion Questions by ItsBigVanilla
• 1) What can Aesop Rock do to avoid becoming too predictable and formulaic as his career progresses? Do you prefer solo work since he's been self-producing, or was his output stronger before 2012?
• 2) In my review, I mentioned a few production details that add life to tracks like “Button Masher” and “Jumping Coffin.” What are your favorite moments of production on the album?
• 3) If Aes did decide to work with outside producers or feature other artists on his solo work, who would you like to see him collaborate with?

I'm utterly bored today so here's a list of every reference to The Winds of Winter that George has made ever since 2011 (and before) on his NotaBlog:
Keep in mind that this is only the references he made IN HIS POSTS. I am aware he gave other information on the book in comments, interviews, but I'm not taking these into account.
(If you want to know about those, check out Brynden BFish's New and Improved Ultimate Winds of Winter Resource )
(Yes, I've been clicking my way through every blog post George has ever written since 2011. Took way too long. But what does this mean? It means I'm a HUGE NERD. But also we have great data...)
Maybe someone has already done a post resembling this one, but somehow, I believe I'm the only one to be bored or desperate enough to even consider doing this... Okay so here we go:
Moving Arianne chapters from ADWD to TWOW - Dancing in Circles? - 27/6/2010
Moving The Forsaken form ADWD to TWOW. 100 manuscript pages have already been written for The Winds of Winter at this point. - Dancing - 31/7/2010
2011
ADWD offically done (included in the list because whatever...) - twas Beauty... - 27/4/2011
A description of the entire writing process of ADWD. This post explains why ADWD took so long to be published, and why so many chapters ended up being pushed back to TWOW. Some of his choice of words might furiously remind you of a much more recent blog post... (my hope is that we'll get a similar post once TWOW is released). - Talking About the Dance - 19/5/2011
"And behind all that, of course, lurks Son of Kong: THE WINDS OF WINTER." - Monkeys On My Back - 1/6/2011
Not sure about what this post is, but whatever... - The WINDS Will Blow - 14/8/2011
GRRM posts the very first sample chapter on his website - A Taste of Winter- 28/12/2011
2012
"one page at a time, one word at a time, one chore at a time." - Venting - 25/2/2012
GRRM reads a part of Victarion I at TIFF Bell Lightbox - Talking to Canadians- 17/3/2012
"WINDS OF WINTER. Yes, I'm working on that too. At the moment, I am writing about the Dothraki. More than that, I sayeth not, you know I don't like to talk about this stuff." - Odds and Ends -12/5/2012
"THE WINDS OF WINTER. Also known as "Son of Kong." Working on it. Lots to do." - Monkeys on My Back - 23/6/2012
"All I can say is... keep reading. The best is yet to come." - Thank You - 11/8/2012
"No, it didn't delay Winds of Winter" (Well technically, this reference was made by one of his assistants but whatever...) - Wolrd of Ice and Fire App - 30/11/2012
"long hours writing [on TWOW?]" - All Quiet - 6/12/2012
2013
" Me, I have a lot more writing to do. On WINDS, and half a dozen other projects." George posts a new sample chapter (Arianne I) on his website. - A Taste of Winter - 8/1/2013
"And now I'm back in the land of wolves and savage dust storms, digging out from under." - Back From LA - 11/6/2013
"And yes, the paperback will include a preview chapter from THE WINDS OF WINTER. (Though at this point it has been so long that I've forgotten which one it is)." - Paperbacks Are Coming - 14/9/2013
2014
Not sure what to make of that one, but here it is. - Super Bowl Sunday - 2/2/2014
World of Ice and Fire is done, only Winds left to write... - Farewell to the Iron Islands - 8/3/2014
Martin posts the Mercy chapter on his website - Something Old, Something New - 25/3/2014
Details on the history of the Mercy chapter - I broke the Internet - 27/3/2014
GRRM won't be writing any D&E stories until he finishes TWOW. Whole post dedicated to Dunk Egg stories - Dunk and Egg - 15/4/2014
"Elsewise, I am home for the rest of the year... and well into next year, I hope. Most of that time I plan to spend in Westeros. " Home Again 28/8/2014
GRRM is frustrated because a rumor about an upcoming publication date for TWOW started spreading - Rumors and Fabrications - 9/12/2014
2015
"But now I am home again, facing the usual mountain of mail and email, and of course the monkeys on my back... those noisiest of them being HIGH STAKES, volume twenty-three in the Wild Cards series, and of course the Son of Kong, THE WINDS OF WINTER. Once more into the breach... " - Home Again - 2/3/2015
"THE WINDS OF WINTER did not come out in 2014, as some of you noticed. But I did have a lot of other material published and broadcast that is eligible for Hugo consideration." - For Your Consideration: Stuff By Me - 8/3/2015
"I have too much to do. Too many things on my plate. Son of Kong foremost amongst them. " GRRM cancels an appearance at the World Fantasy Convention, Saratoga in order to focus on Winds. - Sorry, Saratoga - 14/3/2015
Conventions and Cancellations - 27/3/2015
George uploads the Alayne sample chapter on his website - A Visit to the Vale - 2/4/2015
"Life is impossibly busy right now. I am wrestling with the Son of Kong (that is, working on THE WINDS OF WINTER) [...] What I can control is what happens in my books, so I am going to return to that chapter I've been writing on THE WINDS OF WINTER now, thank you very much. " - Wars, Woes, Work- 10/6/2015
"I am still writing THE WINDS OF WINTER." - What Movie? - 28/9/2015
2016
MEGA UPDATE/NEW YEAR POST - Last Year (Winds of Winter) - 2/1/2016
" As for me, I am still here, still writing, still editing " - Not Dead Yet - 9/3/2016
"And no, just to spike any bullshit rumors, changing the sample chapter does NOT mean I am done. See the icon up above? Monkey is still on my back... but he's growing, he is, and one day..." GRRM releases Arianne II on his website - A Taste of This, A Taste of That - 10/5/2016
AGOT's 20th anniversary: "But here I am, twenty years later... still working on book six... ((and no, sorry, I have no announcement to make on that front))." - The Long Game... of Thrones - 1/8/2016
"My appearance schedule for 2017 is very limited, and will remain so until WINDS is completed." - South of the Border - 28/11/2016
2017
GRRM complains about off-topic comments on TWOW - Underwood Defeats Trump - 9/1/2017
" The anthologies, much as I loved them, were taking too much of my time, so I stepped back from them... until I finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, at least. " GRRM on the "Sons of the Dragons" - A Bit More (Fake) History- 31/1/2017
"Besides all that, there's been the huge new Wild Cards deal, the Wild Cards reread, lots of stuff with HBO that I cannot talk about yet [he is most likely referring to the prequel shows, such as HotD], and of course -- always, always -- WINDS OF WINTER." - March Madness - 18/3/2017
" And yes, before someone asks, I AM STILL WORKING ON WINDS OF WINTER and will continue working on it until it's done." GRRM announces that five successor shows are in the pipelines. - About Those Spinoffs - 14/5/2017
"... and I have stories to tell. But all that will need to wait until I've finished WINDS OF WINTER, and maybe DREAM OF SPRING as well." - Something Old, Something New... - 12/6/2017
" Look, I probably won't be writing episodes of ANY television shows until WINDS OF WINTER is done and delivered, and that goes for the five GAME OF THRONES successor shows as well." - Who Fears Death? - 11/7/2017
"Whether WINDS or the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream..." - The Swords Are Drawn - 22/7/2017
" With Roy gone, I have no idea who will can possibly get to do the audiobooks for THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING. But whoever it is, they will have a hard, hard act to follow. " - Rest in Peace, Roy - 17/10/2017
2018
" No, winter is not coming… not in 2018, at least. You’re going to have to keep waiting for THE WINDS OF WINTER. [...] As for me, I’m returning once again to THE WINDS OF WINTER. " - FIRE & BLOOD : On The Way - 25/4/2018
" (And yes, before you ask, work on WINDS OF WINTER continues, and remains my top priority. It is ridiculous to think otherwise. If I wasn’t busy with WINDS, don’t you think I’d be scripting one or more of these pilots myself? It’s not as if I’ve never written for TV… ) " - HBO Greenlights Goldman Pilot - 11/6/2018
" As proud as I was of those books [Warriors/Dangerous Women/...] , as much as I enjoyed working with Gardner, I did not have the time. WINDS OF WINTER was late and getting later, and the editing had taken more of my time and energy than I thought it would. “I can’t take on anything more right now,” I told him. “We’ll do them later, once I’ve delivered WINDS.” George on editing with his old friend, Gardner Dozois. - Editing With Gardner - 17/6/2018
" I better go. Lots more to do today. Believe it or not, I am working hard on a lot of things (yes, including WINDS), even though I am not allowed to talk about most of them. " - Football, Fire, and Other Stuff - 5/11/2018
"I know you want WINDS, and I am going to give it to you… but I am delighted that you stayed with me for this one as well. [...] Enjoy the read. Me, I am back in my fortress of solitude, and back in Westeros. It won’t be tomorrow, and it won’t be next week, but you will get the end of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.[...] Winter is not the only thing that is coming." - Two Weeks to Remember - 10/12/2018
2019
"For what it’s worth, I do not consider A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE to be a series. It’s one story. A huge complicated story, admittedly, one that will take seven volumes to tell (once I finish the last two). " - Hugo Eligibility - Fire & Blood - 2/2/2019
" Oh, and where was I, you ask? Why wasn’t I with her [Raya Golden, Martin's former assistant] ? Well, I’ve been busy at home. [see the picture in the post, it's pretty self-explanatory] Who loves the infants?? " Not sure how to interpret this one but I'm guessing it's TWOW-related, since it's around the time GRRM went up in the mountains. - Raya Rocks Starport - 24/3/2019
" One day I want to visit China, but not until I’ve finished these books. " - Watchers on Hadrian's Wall - 30/3/2019
" Lots lots more going on, but I have pages to write. ’nuff said. " General update on successor shows and other things. - Stuff and Nonsense - 4/5/2019
GRRM debunks rumors about him having finished Winds and Dream years ago and a deal he didn't make with HBO to hold back the release of the books. - Idiocy on the Internet - 13/5/2019
"I am back home again now, and back once more in Westeros, working on WINDS… which, let me add once more, has NOT been finished and hidden away for years. (sigh)"( sounds similar? ) - More Stuff, More Nonsense - 19/5/2019
Info on TWOW in a post about the end of Game of Thrones - An Ending - 20/5/2019
That joke we took way too seriously (still burns) - Thanks New Zealand - 21/5/2019
"One thing I do know. I’m not done with Westeros, and HBO isn’t either. I have WINDS OF WINTER to finish… and A DREAM OF SPRING… and more Dunk & Egg stories… and the second volume of Archmaester Gyldayn’s history. And we hope to have some exciting news about the successor shows soon as well. " - Emmy Times Four - 2/10/2019
"But… let me make this perfectly clear… I am not taking on any scripts until I have finished and delivered WINDS OF WINTER. Winter is still coming, and WINDS remains my priority, as much as I’d love to write an episodes of HOUSE." HotD is now officially announced. - The Dragons Take Wing - 30/10/2019
2020
" Truth be told, I am spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day. Things are pretty grim in the Seven Kingdoms… but maybe not as grim as they may become here. " - Strange Days - 17/3/2020
" If there is a silver lining in these clouds, this will give me more time to finish WINDS OF WINTER. I continue to write every day, up here in my mountain fastness. " (See that monkey? It's getting bigger by the day) - No Fooling - 2/4/2020
Encouraging update (if that's what it actually is?), progress on Winds. - This, That, and T'Other Thing - 14/4/2020
June Update - Writing, Reading, Writing - 23/6/2020
" ((And before anyone starts to panic, “oh my god he is making videos in place of writing,” OF COURSE I am still working on WINDS OF WINTER as well. That really should go without saying, yet somehow I need to say it, or someone might make stupid assumptions. [...]))" - Rocket Time - 30/6/2020
"This writing stuff is hard. Even so, it has been going well of late. Three more chapters completed this past week. And good progress on several more. Still a long long way to go, though. Do not get too excited. [...] Anyway… be good, kids. Me and the Frog are headed back to Westeros." - Writing... - 19/7/2020
August (kinda) update. Moving ahead with Winds once more. - Back In Westeros - 15/8/2010
" Dwelling where I am now, deep in the heart of Westeros, I find myself surrounded by my characters, the children of my mind and heart and soul. They are real to me, as I write them, and I struggle to make them real to my readers as well. " - Life After Death - 26/8/2020
THE november update (Analysis by the BFish) - Back to Westeros - 8/11/2020
Of course, I probably missed some tidbits and snippets, so if you're really motivated you're welcome to go check every blog post to see if I didn't miss one.
First thing to say: Holy crap that was a lot of Wild Cards and Hugo-related posts to go through... Phew...
Try as I may, I just cannot find it in me to be interested in Wild Cards...
Now the actual thing:
Number of references by year:

2011	4
2012	7
2013	3
2014	7
2015	7
2016	5
2017	8
2018	5
2019	10
2020 (so far)	9 (so far)

I should point out the difference between "planned" Winds of Winter references and "circumstancial" references, which he made in reaction to absurd rumors on the internet, or off-topic comments for example. Many of these allusions and references to Winds are also about cancelling appearances or side quests in order to focus solely on the Son of Kong, or comments that are mostly along the lines of "when TWOW is done... ".
It is also important to note that the only times George mentioned (in a blog post) specifics about his current progress on Winds before 2020 were that time in 2012, 2015, and the now famous New Year's post in 2016. There hasn't been any other specific reference about current work except for the generic "working on Winds" once every 2-3 months (with luck). But when you look at 2020, we've had no less than 4 (!) updates, in which he mentions either the PoVs he's currently working on, or gives a chapter progress count, or even both at the same time. So, looking back, these 2020 updates are exceptionally exceptional.
As the Bfish emphasized in his most recent post here on reddit, his "updates" (if they can actually be considered as such before 2019-2020) have shifted from "lots to do" to "lots done". It certainly feels that way when you compare the November 2020 update to this one from 2015.
And from what I found, we can see that the number of relevant references has been increasing steadily at least since 2018, and even more so since he isolated himself in his mountain cabin some time in 2019. And if we end up having less references to Winds in 2020 after all, they are certainly telling us more about progress on Winds than what we've had for the past 5 years combined.
So my general conclusion is that not only have these little references become more and more frequent as the years passed, but they have also gotten larger and actually more consistent with time (especially in 2020). Add to that the fact that he seems to have been shifting around a LOT of different PoVs (9 or 10, depending on wether you include Jaime/Brienne in that list) within only 4 months (!) ,and reordering and revising old chapters, and I think we might be looking at the early stages of the editing process of TWOW.
(you're obviously welcome to disagree with all that, as I'm sure many people will)
Other fun/interesting/intriguing things I found while being bored :
- George was "roughing out" the next D&E novella, and working on The World of Ice and Fire, (which was supposed to have been delivered three years ago) back in June 2011 - Monkeys On My Back - 1/6/2011
- " These worldbook 'sidebars' are all threatening to turn into novellas. "; Was the idea of Fire and Blood born around this time? - Writing - 19/8/2012
- Update post on the writing of TWoI&F, and how the Dance of the Dragons is turning into a monster of a sidebar. - Still Writing - 15/9/2012
- "Meanwhile, I will get back to work on the fourth Dunk & Egg novella (as yet untitled), which is scheduled to appear in DANGEROUS WOMEN" - The Mystery Knight Rides Again - 25/10/2012
- Post about the release of the Lands of Ice and Fire - Maps! Maps!! Maps!!! - 30/10/2012
- "I'm staying here, to hold down the fort and write. And write, and write, and edit, and write some more. Too much damn work to do, and I am way behind on everything." (he later goes on to say he's writing fake history so I'm assuming he was writing for TWoI&F - Parris Is Coming - 7/1/2013
- Power outage!!! George lost "hours, not words" - Power Out - 9/3/2013
- "The full 80,000 word account of the Dance will eventually appear in a book, as yet untitled, that we're calling the GRRMarillion." First reference to F&B? - The Princess and the Queen - 31/8/2013
- " WINDS OF WINTER, five successor shows, FIRE AND BLOOD (that's the GRRMarillion, remember?), four new Wild Cards books, some things I can't tell you about yet... " What do you think are these "things he can't tell us about yet" ? - About Those Spinoffs - 14/5/2017
- " Alas, alas, that great city Valyria, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come." This is, I suspect, a post about the successor show set in Old Valyria. As it turned out, this show idea ended up being rejected, in favour of THE LONG NIGHT (or Bloodmoon), which ended up being rejected as well. - Alas, Valyria - 12/7/2017
- GRRM comes back from a month of travelling and doing business. - Just Sayin' - 23/8/2017
- " I don't consider A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE a series either; it's one single story, being published in (we hope) seven volumes. " - Hugo Nominations - 7/2/2018
- First direct reference (as I interpreted it) to House of the Dragon - Yowza - 26/3/2018
- " Meanwhile, you have the final season of GAME OF THRONES coming, and the new show that is not yet officially called THE LONG NIGHT being cast, and a couple more shows still being scripted… and a few other cool things in the works as well." What was he referring to? - Two Weeks to Remember - 10/12/2018
- " my readers will definitely be seeing more of him [Bronn] in the books to come." What do you think Ser Bronn of the Blackwater might be up to? - More Idiocy on the Internet - 13/5/2019
- "And I visited another writer’s room as well, for another show. But if I talk about that one, they will kill me." Any guesses? - More Stuff, More Nonsense - 19/5/2019
​
TLDR: A list of every WINDS OF WINTER reference or allusion GRRM's ever made on his Not a Blog.

I opened up the mailbag last week and questions about offensive coordinator Jason Garrett poured in. Understandably, the Giants’ No. 31 scoring offense is the chief concern for fans heading into the offseason.
I wanted to tackle all of the various Garrett questions and a few leftovers on general manager Dave Gettleman in this mailbag. I’ll run another mailbag next Monday that addresses all of the non-Garrett/Gettleman questions. Thanks as always for the submissions!
1) If giants didn’t want to retain Garrett, don’t you think they would have fired him by now? Only other way is they don’t want to ruin his chances is getting a HC job so them firing him is a bad look and ruins his chances...?
To answer your first question simply: Yes. Staff changes typically happen within a week of the season finale. We’re now in Week 3 of the offseason, so it would be odd for the Giants to fire Garrett at this point.
Giants assistants worked for the week after the finale to conclude their evaluations of the 2020 season. Head coach Joe Judge then gave his assistants a much-needed break until after the Super Bowl. Even Judge unplugged last week.
If Judge was going to make a change at such an important position, it’s unlikely he’d drag out the process, especially as new head coaches get hired and start filling out their staffs. The Chargers were the only team to interview Garrett for their head coaching vacancy and that position has been filled by Rams defensive coordinator Brandon Staley. But I don’t think Garrett’s candidacy for that position impacted Judge’s timetable.
As much as fans have clamored for Garrett’s ouster, there have been no indications from Judge that he plans to make a change. And Gettleman’s comment about being “antsy” at the possibility of losing Garrett to a head coaching job was an indication that the team intends to retain the OC.
Now, I can’t say definitively that Garrett will be back — teams typically don’t announce that they’re retaining coaches who are under contract — but there are no signs of a change and every day that passes makes one less likely.
2) You reported that Garrett’s system is difficult to learn especially for a young QB and that other coaches run more QB friendly systems. Do you think the Giants like and want to keep Garrett because they think that Jones will benefit more long term in a system like Garrett’s?
Judge has to be counting on Daniel Jones being better in Year 2 under Garrett, because there’s no way their first season together can be viewed as satisfactory. I’ve been told Garrett’s system is more complicated than some of the more quarterback-friendly schemes that are prevalent across the league (think of the offenses of Andy Reid, Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan). Just think of how much more comfortable Jones looked in Pat Shurmur’s offense as a rookie.
Here’s what I wrote on the topic in October after the Giants dropped to 0-5 and Jones looked lost:
One topic that has come up when talking with coaches not affiliated with the Giants is that Garrett’s scheme is challenging for quarterbacks. One reason is that receivers run a lot of isolation routes. That means the quarterback has to read the coverage and then read which receiver is winning his route. That challenge is compounded by the Giants’ lack of talent at wide receiver, so Jones is rarely throwing into big windows.
It’s hard to figure why anyone would favor a more complex system considering the widespread success of simpler offenses that feature an abundance of pre-snap motion and route combinations that make reads easier. Maybe there would be benefits with a quarterback who is an expert at reading coverages and making quick decisions. But those aren’t Jones’ strengths, so it was odd to pair the young quarterback with a coordinator running this scheme.
Jones did improve in the second half of the season, so it’s possible that he’ll develop with more time in Garrett’s system. But it’s hard to see the upside of deploying a complex passing offense in today’s NFL.
3) How difficult does retaining Garrett make it to evaluate Daniel Jones? I see this as a major issue. Statistically in 2020, Jones’ season was outright poor and the team doesn’t seem to care. Would similar stats in 2021 be pinned on Garrett as they assure us that Jones is their QB?
There’s a fine line between continuity and proactivity. It’s dicey for a team to spend another season to confirm its belief in a playecoach after a subpar season. But the Giants have a strong internal conviction in Jones (and presumably Garrett), so they’re in line to get another season to prove they’re the right men for their jobs.
But 2021 is a prove-it year for both. If the offense, which is expected to receive an infusion of talent at the skill positions, struggles again, there’s no way the organization can feel confident in Jones or Garrett. Talk of subtle improvements won’t cut it for a third-year quarterback, especially with Jones eligible for an extension after next season.
The Giants need to know if they have a franchise quarterback a year from now. If they’re not sure, then the answer will be no. And it will probably be time for a fresh start at quarterback and offensive coordinator.
4) JG built the OFF around 26 (mistake) and when 26 got injured JG didn’t have a good offensive plan for the rest of the season. Given DGs mission to add playmakers to the OFF, do you think theyll change the OFF to better benefit DJ and his skill set? Is JG even capable of that?
It seemed like Garrett was building an offense around Saquon Barkley, but we didn’t see enough of the running back last season to get confirmation. Barkley tore his ACL on the first play of the second quarter in Week 2 and the run game was completely ineffective in the opener, so there isn’t much of a sample size to examine with him in the lineup.
The offense hit a relative stride midway through the season with a power rushing attack and a quick passing game. One would hope the offense will be more explosive with Barkley and improved receivers next season, but that’s all projection.
To your point, the offense certainly should be built around Jones’ strengths. But that type of offense doesn’t necessarily need to conflict with a scheme that features Barkley.
5) Will the giants bring in someone to help with the offense
This question seems to be alluding to a “passing game coordinator” or some similar title that has infiltrated the NFL in recent years. There are no indications that Judge plans to make any additions to the offensive staff.
Whatever criticisms there are of Garrett, he’s not lacking experience. He hung around the NFL for 15 years as a backup quarterback and has been a quarterbacks coach, offensive coordinator or head coach in the league for each of the past 16 seasons.
Plus, tight ends coach Freddie Kitchens has experience as a head coach and offensive coordinator. The Giants have plenty of experience in the offensive meeting room. If there’s a feeling that they need to add a new voice, they should just make a change at coordinator. Garrett is probably not making drastic changes to his approach at this point. If the Giants do add a coach, let’s hope it goes better than when Dave DeGuglielmo was brought on as a consultant.
6) Is DeGuglielmo coming back to coach the OL? WS he given a multi year contract when he came to the team?
I don’t know the contract status of Dave DeGuglielmo, who replaced Marc Colombo as offensive line coach in Week 11. Few things are as closely guarded in the NFL as coaching contract terms.
But here’s what I do know: Giants assistant contracts typically run one year beyond the current season. So when Judge’s staff was hired last year, those contracts likely ran through the 2021 season. It’s customary for the Giants to extend the contracts by a year after the season ends so assistants are never in the final year of their deals. I don’t believe that’s happened yet this offseason, with defensive coordinator Patrick Graham’s extension the obvious exception.
So my guess is DeGuglielmo signed a deal through 2021 when he came onboard, but his transient track record suggests it’s not a lock that he’ll return for another season.
7) After a few years of “the hot OC” as HC trend in the NFL, now the hot trend is “culture change, leader of men” (Judge, Rhule, Saleh, etc.). My biggest fear is that Judge will end up a very good “football coach” but without enough offensive acumen netting just average results.
You can put expected new Lions coach Dan Campbell in that “leader of men” category as well. But I’m not sure that’s necessarily a trend. You still saw a young offensive guru, Arthur Smith, get the Falcons head coaching job in this hiring cycle.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong approach, and there’s nothing that makes me believe Judge’s lack of offensive acumen will net average results. Judge apprenticed under a pair of fairly accomplished head coaches with defensive backgrounds, and there are plenty examples of assistants from all three phases becoming successful head coaches.
With Judge not serving as an offensive play caller, the key was hiring a strong coach to shepherd Daniel Jones’ development. The jury is clearly still out on Jason Garrett’s ability to do so.
8) While I appreciate that the consequences of 2018 are still being felt and talked about even within the organization at what point is that baked into the pie and that we evaluate personnel decisions on a go forward basis?
There were a few comments similar to this one on my story last week revisiting the mistakes of the 2018 offseason. If I just woke up last Friday and decided to bash Dave Gettleman for those moves, then I’d agree with the sentiment that it was overkill.
But I only revisited the topic because co-owner John Mara referenced the “miscalculations” of the 2018 offseason for the first time in his season-ending news conference. When the owner publicly acknowledges a topic that has been dissected extensively, I find it worthy of further examination.
I also thought it was important to review how those 2018 mistakes continue to impact the team. It’s easy to say three years later, “Yeah, we made some mistakes, but those are in the past.” That really isn’t the case in a league with limited draft picks and rollover cap space.
To your question, clearly ownership is viewing the hiring of Judge as a clean slate for Gettleman since their first offseason together produced strong personnel moves. The question that will be answered this offseason is if those results can be duplicated or if there will be a repeat of the 2018 miscalculations.
9) If the Giants don't make the playoffs next season, do you see Gettleman surviving? Even the Giants, loyal to a fault, surely can't let that slide?
Short answer: No. It’s funny, when I was asked last offseason what I thought were the thresholds for Gettleman’s fate, I said that five wins or fewer meant he’d be gone, seven wins or more meant he’d be back and six wins was no man’s land — they could claim progress but it would still be an objectively subpar season.
Obviously, ownership viewed the six wins with a glass half full perspective for Gettleman. But as I’ve noted previously, the notion that Mara never considered firing Gettleman is foolish. The Giants got off to an abysmal start and Mara admitted, “I certainly didn’t feel very good midway through the season when we were sitting there at 1-7.”
If the Giants had finished 2-14 does anyone actually believe Gettleman would be back? But the Giants finished 5-3 and Mara saw enough progress to give Gettleman another shot. Once that decision was made, Mara wasn’t going to publicly say that Gettleman’s fate was teetering before the strong finish.
The stakes will undoubtedly be higher for Gettleman next season. He has 15 wins in three seasons. There can be no more talk of progress without tangible results in his fourth season. Now, if the Giants go 11-5 and miss the playoffs in one of those fluky years, Gettleman should survive. But they need to have a winning record and be in legitimate contention for a playoff spot at minimum for Gettleman to be retained.
Next season is setting up as judgment day for Gettleman, Jones and Garrett.
10) The Jets Joe D just hired a HC, he had no connection to. The Giants seem to be adverse with such hires. Gettleman was handed job.Are we to expect a succession plan of Kevin Abrams as well?
I don’t think that’s a fair criticism since the Giants really had no ties to Judge or Pat Shurmur. But they’ve certainly kept things in-house with general managers. Ernie Accorsi, Jerry Reese and Gettleman all were with the organization before getting promoted/hired as GM.
Mara acknowledged after the season that he’s given some thought to a succession plan for Gettleman, who turns 70 in February. Kevin Abrams has been with the Giants since 1999 and has served as assistant general manager under Accorsi, Reese and Gettleman. Abrams is highly regarded within the organization and is the obvious internal successor to Gettleman.
It’s notable that Abrams hasn’t interviewed for a GM job since Gettleman was hired by the Giants in 2017. Abrams interviewed for the Giants job after serving as the interim GM following Reese’s firing during the 2017 season. He also interviewed for the Lions GM job in 2016. Maybe there just hasn’t been any outside interest in the past three offseasons, but it’s also possible that Abrams hasn’t pursued other opportunities because he’s aligned to succeed Gettleman.
It’s not a lock that the Giants hand the job to Abrams, however, especially if the team struggles next season. It would be tough optically to promote the No. 2 personnel man off of five straight losing seasons.
If the Giants branch out, the obvious crop of candidates is those with connections to Judge from New England. Longtime executive Nick Caserio is off the board after leaving the Patriots to become the Texans’ GM two weeks ago. Two names to store away as potential outside candidates if the Giants make a GM change next year: Titans director of player personnel Monti Ossenfort, who had two interviews for the Panthers GM job that went to former Giants scout Scott Fitterer, and Dave Ziegler, who interviewed for the Broncos GM job that went to George Paton, but elected to stay in New England as Caserio’s likely replacement.
11) Why isn’t the local press more critical of John Mara? Watching the Chicago press go after McCaskey was frustrating considering how soft the NY press is on Mara
I can only speak for myself and I think I’ve been critical of Mara at times, particularly the way the 2017 season was handled. But Mara’s nature doesn’t lend itself to contentious exchanges in news conferences if that’s what you’re seeking.
Mara always falls on the sword after a losing season and accepts criticism. It’s much more natural to get combative with figures like Gettleman or former coach Ben McAdoo, who get defensive/defiant in interviews. I understand fans want their pound of flesh, but it’s disarming when Mara shoulders the blame and genuinely seems disappointed by the team’s failures.
I think Mara gets asked the tough questions and receives his share of criticism, so I don’t agree with the perception that reporters are “soft” on him.