After decades, a story that you once had drive and passion for can grow to become an obligation that you have no fucking clue how you can possibly resolve. The “fun parts” of writing get lost in the boring, technical work of tying all of your loose threads back into a mostly-coherent central narrative. It’s clear that GRRM had an overarching plan for the series, but it’s also clear that whatever that plan was got lost sometime after the third book, so the story he’s trying to finish (…not trying that hard though) isn’t even really what he sought to write in the first place.
Honestly, long-form, serialized storytelling is incredibly difficult. Even in the best of times, the author can simply get bored/tired of writing their story, but nonetheless feel obligated to finish it at the expense of new stories that they may want to write. But really, what incentive does GRRM even have to finish Winds at this point? His franchise is practically dead and he’s pissed away so much goodwill that what few book fans remain have no faith that he’ll put out Winds, much less actually finish the series.
ASOIAF honestly suffers from the same problem fucking Homestuck did. It grew way beyond the original planned scope with too many random and ultimately inconsequential side plots, but what really killed it is the attitude/perception of the creator as this godly figure who was slowly revealing this grand master plan for the story… only for it to be revealed that actually he’s just as lost as the fanbase as to how to satisfyingly tie the numerous and disparate plot threads back into a cohesive ending. So instead of sitting down and just doing it, they put it off and occupy their time with pointless (and ultimately failed) side projects. Except unlike Andrew Hussie, GRRM is old and fat and will likely die before he decides to just shit out whatever ending he can manage.
