[CliffFletcher]

It's evident from his interviews and blog posts that Martin dreads sitting down to the keyboard to write these books. Whatever pleasure he had taken in the series is long gone. Now it's just a crushing burden.

Interesting that he admits to being a chronic procrastinator. A classic tactic of procrastinators is to substitute a new activity or goal for the one you're trying to avoid. Martin doesn't outline, and has admitted that although he knows how the series will end, he pretty much makes up the plot as he goes. My take is that sometime early in the Feast of Crows he became frustrated with wrestling the main plot into shape, and allowed himself to get enticed by a host of digressions, hoping that the main plot problems would fix themselves. The story became more complicated, and even more difficult to resolve. Sitting down to write became even more of a chore. Anything became more attractive than writing the next book - conventions, hanging around the TV production, other writing projects.

I don't really fault the guy. He's a very undisciplined writer, but that's just how he writes. And he doesn't owe the fans anything. Still, it should be clear by now that he won't finish the series. And he has said he won't let anyone else finish, even once he's dead. So the TV series is the only conclusion we'll get to the story.