College Football Daily Lines ESPN

Intro

A year after George RR Martin finished A Dance with Dragons, he updated his fans on The Winds of Winter:

THE WINDS OF WINTER. Also known as "Son of Kong." Working on it. Lots to do.

Massive and very specific update on The Winds of Winter complete, George turned to another project:

THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE. The concordance. Elio and Linda are my partners on this one, a compendium of the history and legends of the world of Westeros. A coffee table book, lots of gorgeous art from such talents as Ted Nasmith, Justin Sweet, and others. Making good progress on this one of late, lots of great historical stuff that I think my readers will enjoy. Never before revealed details of Aegon's Conquest, the War With the Faith, The Dance of the Dragons, the Paramours of Aegon the Unworthy, etc.

Hm. That seems much more detailed. This would become a pattern for George in the early years after A Dance with Dragons’ publication. He’d update at length on all of the imaginary history he was inventing for The World of Ice and Fire while occasionally placing a single-yet-generous breadcrumb of an update about Winds into our porridge bowl of need.
This led to fans mostly being in the dark on GRRM's progress on Winds -- with more cynical fans wondered if George was working on on the book at all.
Here’s the thing: George was working on The Winds of Winter. I can prove it. And in 2015 when he optimistically predicted he could finish the book in six months, he had good reason for his optimism. What was that good reason? Because by 2015, GRRM had completed two plot arcs and had wrapped two major POV characters for The Winds of Winter.
You are skeptical. I will convince you. Follow me into the light.

The Leftovers

In his retrospective on A Dance with Dragons, GRRM talked about the chapters he cut to The Winds of Winter, saying:

First, my editors and I made some decisions as to where to end this book which involved shifting a few chapters back into the next volume, THE WINDS OF WINTER. With a series like A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, there are always judgment calls to make as to where to end one book and begin the next, since you're really dealing with one long story. Does this scene work best at the end of one book or the beginning of the next? Should this character go out with a cliffhanger or with some sort of resolution (be it permanent or temporary)? And so on. And so forth.

Then he talked about the identity of the POV characters that were not in ADWD that had chapters leftover saying:

Sansa, Sam, Aeron Damphair, Arianne, and Brienne have no chapters in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Several of those characters had chapters written, completed, and polished that have been moved into THE WINDS OF WINTER.

In the years since 2011, we were told or been able to piece together most of the chapters cut from ADWD to TWOW. They are: Alayne (Sansa I), Mercy (Arya I), Arianne I and II and Aeron Greyjoy (The Forsaken)
In that 2010 post where he talked about cutting Damphair’s chapter from Dance to Winds, he talked about how many pages he had on hand for Winds, saying:

The good news is that I seem to have written more than a hundred pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER already.

Five chapters/100 manuscript pages. Now, let’s turn to the chapters that were moved after Damphair's in 2010. In 2011, GRRM’s editor Anne Groell talked about how two major sequences were cut from ADWD to TWOW. These two sequences are the Battle of Ice and the Battle of Meereen. Originally, these two battles were supposed to close ADWD out, but GRRM voluntarily cut one battle to TWOW, and then Anne Groell convinced him to cut the other battle.
Knowing, now, that GRRM was working on an Asha Battle of Ice chapter in 2014 but released a Theon chapter as his first TWOW sample in December 2011 (right after he finished his ADWD tour and also before he planned to embark on new writing for TWOW), we can reasonably assume that the Theon sample chapter was originally written for ADWD before George voluntarily removed it to TWOW.
Switching to deduction, we can then determine that the Battle of Meereen was the sequence GRRM's editors urged him to cut late in the process. What Battle of Meereen chapters were cut to TWOW? Here, we turn to the Cushing Library and find a display card from the “Deeper Than Swords” event indicating that George cut three chapters from ADWD to TWOW in April/May 2011.
As to who the POVs were, we can make an educated guess that one of them was a Victarion chapter and another one was a Tyrion chapter. Both chapters were read in early 2012 at conventions shortly after GRRM started writing TWOW afresh. As for the third chapter cut, I think this was Barristan’s first chapter. Thanks to zionius_, we know that George was writing Barristan II in April 2012, but in early 2013, GRRM read both Barristan chapters and indicated that the chapters were “new to you but old to me.” That third chapter was probably Barristan I.
The final two chapters we can be relatively certain were written for ADWD and cut to TWOW were a Bran chapter and an Areo Hotah chapter. We only know that Bran was cut thanks to _honeybird who discovered that it was listed among “missing chapters” originally slated as among the final chapters of the book. Additionally, we know that in 2010, Elio Garcia Jr. reported that three Dorne chapters were moved from ADWD to TWOW. Two of those Dornish chapters were Arianne chapters. The third was likely an Areo Hotah chapter.
Post-2010, GRRM cut six additional chapters to Winds. Adding in the previously-accounted-for five chapters, George had eleven leftover chapters as a springboard for Winds. Fast-forwarding to 2012, GRRM told Spanish fan-site Adria’s News that he had two hundred “really finished” manuscript pages for TWOW -- probably all of his leftover material from Dance (100 pages/5 chapters cut in 2010 + 100 pages/6 chapters cut in 2010/2011).
The identity of these chapters gives us a springboard for understanding where George was when he returned to writing Winds anew in early 2012, but it's important to note that George started Winds with a much smaller sample of leftover chapters than when he split Feast and Dance in 2005. Recall, then, that he had 542 manuscript pages/22 chapters done for ADWD.
But there's another and perhaps even more important difference: From all available evidence, George did not have complete story arcs like he did when he split AFFC/ADWD.
In 2005, George believed that the amount of material he had leftover put him over halfway complete on Dance. That was not the case for The Winds of Winter in 2012 where he only had 200 of the expected 1500 manuscript pages completed.

Early Progress on TWOW (2012)

When George began writing new material for Winds in 2012, he faced a daunting amount of new writing to finish the book. And given his track record, any old and new writing for Winds would be rewritten, revised and restructured.
So, how was it that George thought he was close enough in 2015 to get the book out before Game of Thrones, Season Six aired -- just three years after writing new material for TWOW?
We’ll start with what we know of George’s early progress on TWOW.
As we talked about above, George had about 200 new manuscript pages for the book between January and June 2012 -- work he considered to be “in rough form.” As to what specifically was contained in those 200 rough draft pages, we know that:

George reported having a partially written complementary chapter set between the finished Arianne II and the unwritten Arianne III in 2010. Link
He was working on Barristan's second TWOW chapter in April 2012. Link
He was writing about the Dothraki in May 2012. (A Daenerys chapter) Link
George sent a “batch” (3-5) of Arya TWOW chapters to Jonathan Robert, artist for The Lands of Ice and Fire to help in the creation of the map for Braavos in early 2012. Link

That’s about the extent of what we know about those 200 manuscript pages. Given the benchmark that 100 manuscript pages = ~5 chapters, he wrote rough drafts of ~10 total new chapters.
Fast-forwarding to a year later, Anne Groell reported receiving a batch of 168 manuscript pages from TWOW for a contracted payment from Random House in February 2013, and George reported being “about a quarter of the way done” on TWOW a month later. My reading is that GRRM finalized 168 of the 200 draft manuscript pages or ~9 additional chapters for TWOW.
So, by early-2013, GRRM had 368 manuscript pages and ~20 finalized chapters for TWOW complete for TWOW.
However, Anne Groell reported that the 168 manuscript pages wasn’t everything that George had written:

I currently have 168 pages that he submitted back in Feb 2013 in order to receive a contracted payment, but I know more exists, because he keeps talking about chapters he hasn't yet sent me.

This throws a wrench into things as George having 368 manuscript pages complete for Winds lines up well with his statement a month later that he was “about a quarter of the way done.” So, how to square that circle? What I'd guess is that George sent all of his finalized chapters forward to his publishers while retaining mostly-finished chapters he still wanted to polish.
To sum it up: from what we know: In 2012, George wrote ~200 manuscript pages and was specifically working on the Barristan, Daenerys and Arya chapters.
Meanwhile, GRRM was making significant progress on The World of Ice and Fire.

The Written World(book)

Let’s pause on Winds and switch over to George’s progress on The World of Ice and Fire for reasons that will become clear later on.
Shortly after returning from his ADWD tour, George began writing The World of Ice and Fire. As elio_garcia told me a few years back, George first wrote the history of Aegon’s Conquest which he sent to them in May 2012. Thereafter, GRRM wrote detailed histories of the various Targaryen monarchs, but where he really focused on was the history of the dance of the dragons.
By September 2012, Martin reported having 103 manuscript pages on the dance of the dragons. But even that was not the full extent of all he wrote on that event. In August 2013, George finished the dance of the dragons, writing 80,000 words solely on that particular Targaryen civil war.
Reasonably, many fans wondered whether The World of Ice and Fire detracted from George’s progress on The Winds of Winter. In terms of the sheer amount of time and effort it took to write the worldbook: probably, yes. However, as we’ll explore later on, George probably used his writing on The World of Ice and Fire as part of the process for writing The Winds of Winter.

Winds Progress (2013)

Switching back to Winds. By early 2013, George was only a quarter of the way complete on The Winds of Winter. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones was a few months away from airing the third season. So, George had to pick up the pace for the book to get ahead of the show.
The major issue in getting ahead of the show was that 2012 only had him finalizing ~10 new chapters, and in terms of completed story, he hadn’t finished writing the battles of Meereen and Ice that were supposed to close out ADWD. So, George seemingly continued work on the Battle of Meereen, writing and completing Tyrion’s second Winds chapter sometime between February and August 2013 as it wasn’t a part of the batch of chapters that Anne Groell received in February 2013, but he read the chapter at Worldcon 2013.
Meanwhile, in May 2013, George was asked point-blank by Portuguese fans what POV character he was working on, and he responded with “Arya.”.
Later in 2013, GRRM stated on his notablog that “you will definitely hear more of Jeyne Westerling.”. Given that we later learned at ComicCon 2014 that Jeyne Westerling will be seen in the Winds Prologue, we can speculatively-assume that George had written at least a draft or partial form of the Prologue by 2013.
Elsewise in 2013, we learned that GRRM requested Dothraki translations for The Winds of Winter from David J. Peterson (The creator of the Dothraki Language for Game of Thrones). This implies that George had Daenerys material written by 2013 and needed it translated from English to Dothraki.
So, again, in 2013, we see George working on the Battle of Fire, Daenerys and Arya (and also the Prologue).

The Locomotive Approaches (2014)

By 2014, two things happened. The first was that George RR Martin finished The World of Ice and Fire in March 2014. The second was that George realized that Game of Thrones was catching up to him.
First, The World of Ice and Fire. In March 2014, George RR Martin completed a chapter on the Iron Islands and finished the book. As he reported in that post, his completion of The World of Ice and Fire was late, owing to him being a slow writer but also due to him adding a lot to the book (Sound familiar?).
GRRM concluded his notablog post by saying:

And HEY, this means another monkey is off my back. Only a couple left gibbering up there now. That little joker monkey, HIGH STAKES. And... gulp… SON OF KONG.

Part of George’s nervousness about confronting the Son of Kong was based in how high of a mountain he had to climb to complete the book, but the bigger part is that he had a locomotive heading for him in the form of Game of Thrones.
In the early years after Game of Thrones premiered, GRRM wasn’t exactly dismissive of the idea that Game of Thrones would catch up to him, but he didn’t seem overly concerned.
By 2014, though, things had changed. Now about to air its fourth season, Game of Thrones was approaching the end of George’s published ASOIAF material. George, to his credit, was now cognizant of this, telling Vanity Fair in 2014:

“It’s my hope that they’ll [do two or three seasons for AFFC/ADWD] and then, long before they catch up with me, I’ll have published The Winds of Winter, which’ll give me another couple years. It might be tight on the last book, A Dream of Spring, as they juggernaut forward.”

The problem for George was that David Benioff and Dan Weiss were not interested in adapting A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons into multiple seasons. Instead, they were only looking at doing these two books in one season.
In response, George transitioned most of his creative output to The Winds of Winter. Sadly, we don’t know much of this output, really only being sure that George was writing: Daenerys and Asha.
On a brief appearance on the John Oliver show, GRRM appeared from his office with the computer screen on. Years later, fans were able to figure out that George was working on an Asha Greyjoy Battle of Ice chapter.
Onto Daenerys. In September 2014, in an interview with Galaxy Magazine (link unfortunately behind a paywall or in a hard copy), George talked about his writing for Winds saying:

“I’m going back to The Winds of Winter and writing the next scene—I’ve got Dany in a particular situation. I’ve just got to worry about how does this scene resolve? How do I end this chapter? How do I phrase this sentence?”

Finally, when George released the Mercy chapter, he talked a little about his progress, saying:

So far, I have not done anywhere near as much rewriting on WINDS... but of course, it is not done yet.

Fans took this as a qualitative sign of George’s progress back in 2014. The problem was quantitative. Information about how much of The Winds of Winter was done by 2014 is sparse. However, at a November 2014 charity drive for the Wild Wolf Sanctuary, George off-handedly said:

"I'm still in the middle of [The Winds of Winter], so it'll be some time before I write the scenes in which they die."

Provided that George wasn’t using “the middle of the book” colloquially, this meant that Winds was roughly halfway complete by November 2014, or had 750 finalized manuscript pages for TWOW. George had picked up his pace in writing TWOW, but he still had a long way to go to reach the finish line -- an additional ~750 manuscript pages.

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge:

Before we venture into theory territory, we’re going to take a tactical pause and assess all of the known chapters George completed for The Winds of Winter by late 2014.

Aeron Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Asha Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Areo Hotah: 1 Chapter
Arianne Martell: 2 Chapters
Arya Stark: 3-6 Chapters
Barristan Selmy: 2 Chapters
Bran Stark: 1 Chapter
Daenerys Targaryen: 3 Chapters
Prologue: 1 Chapter
Sansa Stark: 1 Chapter
Theon Greyjoy: 1 Chapter
Tyrion Lannister: 2 Chapters
Victarion Greyjoy: 1 Chapter

In total, that’s 19-23 completed chapters that we can be sure existed. If George was truly halfway done on Winds by 2014, that tacks on an additional ~19 chapters to bring us up to 38-42 chapters/750 manuscript pages completed for Winds by late 2014. For comparative purposes: A Storm of Swords was 1521 manuscript pages/82 chapters while ADWD was 1510 manuscript pages/72 chapters. What this means is that in a best-case scenario, George had to write or finalize an additional ~30 chapters/750 manuscript pages for the book to get to the finish line: a daunting task!
So, then why in early 2015 (four months after he said he was “in the middle”) did George RR Martin tell Entertainment Weekly that he could get the book out before Game of Thrones, Season 6?:

Having The Winds of Winter published before season 6 of Thrones airs next spring “has been important to me all along,” says the best-selling New Mexico author. “I wish it was out now. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I’m turning down a lot more interviews—anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done.”

This interview was conducted in April 2015, and given what Martin later said about his publishing house setting an initial deadline of October 2015 to release the book, George thought he only had six months of work to do before the book would be done.
And that’s why I think George’s optimism about getting the book done by October 2015 was sourced to what he had already written, rather than what he had left to write. In that, I now believe George finished major storylines for The Winds of Winter by late 2014/early 2015.

The Completed Battles

Among the known completed chapters for Winds, one thing that stands out is how many of the chapters dealt with the Battle of Meereen and the Battle of Ice. From our best information, four battle chapters were removed from Dance, and George wrote at least three additional battle chapters between 2012-2014.
Let’s move into theory ground: in looking at the available evidence, it appears that when George got back to writing The Winds of Winter, he picked up where he left off: in Meereen. Completing Barristan’s second chapter in 2012 and then Tyrion’s second chapter in 2013 indicates that George’s initial forays into Winds were Meereenese-centric. But after 2013, we don’t hear about George working on Meereen.
Over to the Battle of Ice. The Asha fragment reads like the opening moves of the Battle of Ice, chronologically occurring almost immediately after the Theon sample chapter where Stannis tells Justin Massey:

“I want you gone before midday, ser. Lord Bolton could be on us any moment, and it is imperative that the banker return to Braavos. You shall accompany him across the narrow sea.”

To get speculative, it reads like George hadn’t written anything about the Battle of Ice between the Theon Winds chapter and the Asha chapter he was working on in June 2014. Yet we know that George had written additional Theon, Asha and Victarion Winds chapters by 2017.
All of this leads me to think that by the end of 2014, George had finished the Battle of Meereen, and I think it’s possible he completed the Battle of Ice as well.
That’s two major plot-points possibly complete by the end of 2014. Still, even with those story points hypothetically completed, George had only finished story arcs originally intended for ADWD.
And that’s why he wasn’t just done with the battles by 2014. He might have completed far more than that. Entire POV characters.

Daenerys Targaryen the Complete

Let’s start with an uncontroversial statement: By 2014, I believe that George RR Martin had completed what he thought was all of Daenerys Targaryen’s chapters for The Winds of Winter.
Kindly drop the rocks that have suddenly materialized in your hands. I know that is a controversial theory. It was a joke! For this particular hypothesis that George had all of Dany’s chapters done by 2014, I started with the problem of “How the fuck did George think he could finish Winds by 2015 given how little of the book seemed to be done by that point? And then my research took me to everything we knew about Daenerys in Winds and then by accident, I stumbled on the split between Feast and Dance.
That accidental stumbling led to a whole essay on this topic. In that essay, I talked about how George believed he had Daenerys' and Tyrion’s ADWD story arcs complete before he split AFFC/ADWD into two separate books. This, along with the started-yet-incomplete Jon, Davos, Arya, Asha arcs, led to his optimism that ADWD would be finished by 2006.
I think something similar happened with The Winds of Winter. I think George had completed Daenerys Targaryen’s arc (and another arc I’ll unpack in the next section) by 2014. Is there evidence for this wild-ass theory? Perhaps!
In June 2014, George RR Martin was interviewed by James Hibberd and teased The Winds of Winter, saying:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.”

For much of the book, they’re still apart. That’s a fascinating statement! Why? Because it might imply that George had written Dany’s story to its near or actual endpoint!
No, I don’t think this means that George was nearly complete on all of his story arcs. Just Dany's (and the other one). And that tracks with his non-linear writing style whereby he writes from one POV - until he runs out of steam before switching to a separate POV. As George talked about in that interview, sometimes, he gets way ahead on certain POV characters, and even has them completed well in advance of other POV characters.
In that vein, there’s something else odd about Daenerys. After 2014, we don’t hear about George working on a Daenerys chapter … at all. This radio silence on Dany in TWOW lines up with George writing Dany’s ADWD chapters. In 2003, he told a fan that Dany’s ADWD chapters were almost wrapped up -- eight years before he published them. George did write a bit more about Dany after 2003 and after the split of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, but the last we hear about him writing Dany chapters for ADWD was in 2008 -- three years before the book was published.
However, to be fair, in 2018, George had one more mention of Dany within the context of her aforementioned intersection with Tyrion, telling Entertainment Weekly:

In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated.

So, the counterargument is that what George was saying about Dany and Tyrion's intersection back in 2014 was aspirational. He planned for the two to intersect late in The Winds of Winter, but he had not written that intersection. And perhaps by 2018, he was still struggling with timing Dany and Tyrion’s intersection.
Here’s a counter-counterargument: George wrote one version of Daenerys and Tyrion intersecting by 2014, was initially satisfied with it, but in the years since, he grew dissatisfied and experimented with the event occurring at different narrative junctures in the Winds -- hence the “I’m juggling the timeline” wording.
At the very least, George juggling the timeline of character intersections by writing multiple versions of it is something George has done in the past. Back in ADWD, he reported writing three versions of Dany and Quentyn’s intersection, timing that to occur at different junctures in the story to see which one was the most narratively-satisfying.
Now, before I leave you all convinced that George had written all of Dany’s TWOW chapters by 2014/2015, there is a good counterargument. About a month ago, I sent the sketch of this theory to feldman10, and he responded by saying:

What I question given his writing style is how GRRM could have “finished” Dany years in advance if she is regularly intersecting with other POVs. For instance, if Barristan, Vic, and Tyrion do reunite with Dany at some point in TWOW (as I certainly hope they do!), I would expect GRRM would begin writing them as all one “story” (unless they split up again). That’s even more important if Dany reaches Westeros and starts interacting with the Young Griff team.
That's really because of the gardening approach. Given that writing style, how could GRRM possibly write Dany’s interactions and conflicts with those other characters without having written them all up to the same point, and therefore having decided what they’ve all experienced, where they’re all coming from, and what their respective gardens have produced?

These are all excellent points by Adam, and I appreciate the counterpoint and have copied and pasted it here with his permission.
And if you thought the “Dany is wrapped” theory is way too speculative, you’re going to love (hate) the next part of the theory.

The Dances of the Dragons

Remember how we talked about George’s progress on The World of Ice and Fire? Let’s bring it home here. Part of the reason why I initially brought up the worldbook is how it's tied into the plotting of The Winds of Winter. It’s almost as if George used his imaginary history as a set of guideposts for The Winds of Winter. But perhaps the imaginary history is more than a guide for the novel.
The theory: What I think happened was that George parallel-wrote the dance of the dragons alongside of his Young Griff story arc in The Winds of Winter.
Recall that in 2010, George had written two Arianne chapters that he cut to The Winds of Winter. Also recall that he had a partially-written complementary chapter and envisioned a third unwritten Arianne chapter. We skipped over the possible identity of that partially written complementary chapter, but here, we’ll talk about it. It’s very likely a Jon Connington chapter as he’s in a prime position to bridge events from the end of TWOW, Arianne II (Arianne goes to Storm’s End) to whatever George is planning for Arianne III.
Right after George published A Dance with Dragons, though, he decided to write another chapter in the Stormlands as werthead reported in August 2011:

As speculated by many, two large battles will take place early on, a ‘battle of ice’ (presumably at Winterfell) and a ‘battle of fire’ (presumably at Meereen). A third battle has been added, namely the assault on Storm’s End by Jon Connington’s forces. Originally this was going to happen off-page, but GRRM decided it really should be shown. Possibly because we’ve seen Storm’s End under siege forever and it might be cool to finally see the place under full-scale assault.

This was another spot where George was expanding Aegon VI’s story, gardening his way towards more satisfactory storytelling vis-à-vis a newly-imagined Jon Connington chapter. It also shows us that George was very much in the mindset of thinking through Young Griff’s storyline just a few months after the publication of ADWD.
And then similar to Daenerys, 2011 was the last time we heard about George writing one of our primary eyes on Young Griff in TWOW. Like the absence of Dany chapters, that is odd. With Dany, George played mostly coy with whether Dany would have chapters, because of the cliffhanger he left Dany on in at the end of her ADWD arc. But with Arianne Martell and Jon Connington, we already knew that Arianne would return as a POV, and George had all-but-confirmed that JonCon would return.
And yet, July 2010 is the last time GRRM talked about writing Arianne’s TWOW chapters while August 2011 is the last time we hear about George’s plan to write a Jon Connington chapter. But in the years immediately following ADWD’s publication, we have a whole body of imaginary history work which reads like signposts for where George was going to take Aegon VI and Daenerys’ story.
Here comes the speculation: I think the whole time George was writing a detailed account of the dance of the dragons for the worldbook, he parallel wrote Young Griff’s story arc in the form of Arianne and Jon Connington’s Winds chapters.
We know that George didn’t set Winds aside while he worked on The World of Ice and Fire as there are Winds chapters we know he was writing in the 2012-2014 timeframe. Logically, it makes sense that George stayed within the same sphere of creative inspiration as he developed the imaginary history in parallel with developing Young Griff's story.
There’s a paragraph which first appeared in The Princess and the Queen (an abridged version of the dance of the dragons) which has always struck me as explicit foreshadowing for Young Griff's story in TWOW. It's this one:

Every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. He sat the Iron Throne. He lived in the Red Keep. He wore the Conquerer’s crown, wielded the Conquerer’s sword, and had been anointed by a septon of the Faith before the eyes of tens of thousands. Grand Maester Orwyle sat in his councils, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had placed the crown upon his princely head. And he was male, which in the eyes of many made him the rightful king, his half sister the usurper.

This paragraph is emblematic of something at work with the entirety of the dance of the dragons that George wrote: namely, that the entire historical conflict and civil war reads as backdrop for Young Griff/Aegon VI’s rise in The Winds of Winter and downfall in A Dream of Spring.
Is it so implausible, then, that GRRM was switching back and forth between writing Arianne and JonCon chapters while writing what became known as "The Dying of the Dragons" section of the worldbook? (Maybe, lol)

What Went Wrong

In 2005, GRRM predicted that ADWD would be published in 2006, sourcing this to how much Dany and Tyrion material was already done. If George had completed all the Dany, JonCon and Arianne chapters by April 2015, GRRM had good reason to believe he could get Winds out in six months. All he had to do was complete the POV arcs for characters supporting Young Griff and Dany’s stories as well as the “bottle storylines” and probably complete one more major story arc.
So, what went wrong?
In his New Year 2016 Winds post, George talked generally about the issues he had after his bout of optimism in 2015, saying things like:

Yes, there's a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters. (Those 'no pages done' reports were insane, the usual garbage internet journalism that I have learned to despise). But there's also a lot still left to write. I am months away still... and that's if the writing goes well. (Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.) Chapters still to write, of course... but also rewriting. I always do a lot of rewriting, sometimes just polishing, sometimes pretty major restructures.

Later in the post, he talked about a similar angle, saying:

Even as late as my birthday and our big Emmy win, I still thought I could do it... but the days and weeks flew by faster than the pile of pages grew, and (as I often do) I grew unhappy with some of the choices I'd made and began to revise...

This is George’s gardening style at work: restructuring/rewriting/revising what he considered to be substandard writing. That’s part of the reason George failed to meet his October and then December 2015 deadlines.
But I think there’s a missing piece -- one which has only become apparent in George’s recent posts about the POV characters he’s reported working on in June, August and November 2020: the Dany/Young Griff supporting POV characters and the bottle arcs.
Back in 2005, George was optimistic that he could finish ADWD by 2006, because he merely had to finish Jon’s story along with cast of characters supporting Jon/Dany’s storylines. But what delayed ADWD was the supporting cast of characters – especially in Dany’s storyline as it related to the Meereenese Knot. George struggled for years to satisfactorily write a twisting path of POV characters heading toward – or away – from Meereen, and that, more than anything, delayed that book’s publication.
Turning back to Winds: In recent months, George has indicated that he was writing/visiting the following POVs:

Tyrion Lannister
Barristan Selmy
Areo Hotah
Asha Greyjoy
Cersei Lannister
Arya Stark
Victarion Greyjoy
Melisandre of Asshai
Samwell Tarly

The POV characters listed here are ones likely to be found in support of Dany’s arc (Victarion, Barristan, Tyrion), in Young Griff’s orbit (Cersei and arguably Areo) or bottle arcs -- ones temporarily independent from the rest of the story (Samwell and Arya).
So, in addition to the rewriting/revising/restructuring, I’d argue that what belayed George’s optimism of publishing Winds in 2016 was the supporting cast of POV characters. Those troubles extended beyond 2015 given that George was still working on these POV characters in 2020.

Conclusion (2017-2021)

In the years since 2016, George has optimistically predicted that he'd finish TWOW in 2017. But six months later, GRRM discounted 2017 and thought 2018 was possible. But by mid-2018, he admitted that Winds wasn't coming in 2018. Then in 2019, tongue-in-cheek said New Zealand could imprison him there if he did not have TWOW in hand by Worldcon 2020.
Unfortunately, data on what GRRM was working on is spare, but I'll give it a shot. Given that George talked about how important Lady Stoneheart's story is for TWOW in 2017, my theory is that GRRM made progress on Jaime and Brienne's chapters in 2017.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that there's another POV character I haven't mentioned: Jon Snow. Will Jon have chapters in TWOW? Are they written? Yes. Perhaps some of his optimism in 2019 is sourced to him making progress on Jon Snow, perhaps even completing his POV arc.
In his last specific update on Winds (As of January 2021), George sounded optimistic once again, :

No, sorry, still not done, but I do inch closer. It is a big big book. I try not to dwell on that too much. I write a chapter at a time, a page at a time, a sentence at a time, a word at a time. It is the only way.

At the beating heart of all of this work that George RR Martin has put into The Winds of Winter is a desire to create a book that satisfies and captivates us. I believe this book will come, and when it does, all of the bleeding into the keyboard will have been worth it.

Hunter or Huntress Chapter 86: Breakthrough

So then another chapter ready for inspection by the hungry masses. Ended up doing a bit of a rewrite on this so that cost a day. I hope it's worth it.
The editing due has been over this, cutting a path through my incompetence, hopefully, the path of the story is nice and clear, for you all to traverse.
But without further ado let's read some story.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
First Previous Next
__________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 86: Breakthrough
“Look, it’s doing it. That must be north… or is that south?” Sapphire let out excitedly. The thing was actually working. They had made a compass. Or... more like a demonstration that it could be done. A nail in a cork in some water was not much of a tool, but it worked.
“No, that's north. Definitely. Let's paint that end,” Dakota replied.
“I wonder what else it can do?” Tink went, turning back to the big magnet. They had taken the plates out of the small blitz gel container. “Oh, it’s still a nagnet too! Look!”
Sapphire looked to the crazy inventor who now had some tool dangling from the big magnet as if by magic.
“That’s… strange-looking,” Balethon replied, looking at the odd arrangement.
“I wonder how strong you can make these?” Tink continued, a slight sense of dread welling up inside Sapphire.
“Let’s not find that out. We just need to make the contass needles.”
“Why is it we call everything what Tom calls it? Why not north finder, or… wayfinder?” Balethon questioned.
“Oh, I like wayfinder,” Sapphire had to agree, besides they had made it, not Tom. Even if he had given them the idea.
“Wayfinder it is,” Dakota stated “Tink, you wanted to make the actual housing and needle for this thing, right?”
“Actually, I would rather see what this thing can do,” he replied, not looking up from the big magnet.
“In that case I do not want to be here,” Sapphire responded. She knew where this was likely going.
“Oh come on, it’s only a tiny amount. Just go into the forge instead then. Junior would you start work on the molds for the grey bits with them?”
“Sure, Dad. Come on, let’s get well clear,” Junior replied, ushering them into the next room.
They had taken to work making the molds for the pencil leads. Sapphire still didn’t understand that name. There was no lead in them after all. Tink came in after a while and forced them to come in and see just how strong the magnet now was. After the thing had been turned on for a few minutes without blowing up they relented to his excitement.
It had been very entertaining to see Balethon try and yank it off an iron bar, only for Tink to cut the power, causing the guy to fall on his ass, swearing about a hurt tail.
“Imagine what this could be used for! You could… You could...”
“Make the world's most expensive to run lock?” Dakota replied, clearly not impressed with the selection of ideas.
“You might be able to use it to catch your opponent's sword or shield,” Maiko added. “Not sure I would want to carry that though.”
“We will figure something out. Speaking of figuring out, it’s quite simple really. Just add more wire and move the plates closer together. I can make it even stronger,” Tink replied, eyeing the device with pride.
Sapphire could well remember how Tom’s experiment with moving plates closer together had gone. “I think you should go up to the roof with that before you try it, Tink. Might save some of your windows.”
“Fine, if that calms your nerves,” Tink replied, gathering up the things and going up the stairs.
“He’s gonna go deaf isn't he?” Maiko questioned.
To no one's surprise around twenty minutes later the explosion was heard, followed by a rather depressed-looking Tink coming down the stairs. Looking like a kid who had just lost a toy.
“Soo, what did we tell you?” Sapphire tried.
“You’re a funny one, aren’t you?” Tink replied in a lot less enthusiastic tone than usual.
“Well, at least he didn’t go deaf,” Dakota stated matter of factly. “Can we get on with actual work now? Tom and the others should report back later today. We are gonna have to pass on the news when that happens.”
“Fine,” Tink replied, sighing a bit. “But I will try again later. We need more membrane leather, as thin and fine as you can find it, and some thin metal plate, again as thin as you can find it. Oh and don’t forget some flints for the lighter. Junior, you know what to look for. It was my understanding you people needed to find some more stores for things you needed. Let Junior show you around, I have work to do.”
Sapphire didn’t have any objections to being further away if Tink was gonna try his little experiment again. She did sort of want him to succeed though, besides if he blew himself up they were likely in trouble.
“Tink, Tom tried to cool down the blitz gel with water like in a bath. Might help a bit,” Sapphire went as they were going out the door. Tink nodded politely at her before looking curiously back at what was left of the first experiment.
__________________________________________________________________________________
It had been a slow morning, but activity had started to pick up. The girl had returned with several more bowls of the actually rather decent stew. Perhaps the fact he was damn well starving was responsible for the deliciousness though. Jacky had also dug in with quite the appetite. Zarko eventually joined them as Luke and the silvered huntress did the rounds waking up everyone who was able. They still had a job to do, and they were on a timer after all.
Eventually Luke had come over, wearing a strained smile as he looked around.
“So, how are the heroes doing?”
“I feel like shit, but I’m alive and even I can tell you, Jacky is not that much better off.” That did result in Luke's smile growing even more strained.
“I see… I was wondering if you have any ideas for how to, you know, get out without them giving chase.”
“What are they doing and how many are there?” Zarko questioned looking up.
“They are laying siege, I think. They are mostly trying to fix their camp after what you did last night. There’s only maybe 15 left; 20 if you count the heavily wounded who are still standing.”
“They are just sitting there?” Tom questioned, looking at Luke, repressing a yawn.
“Yup, and we don't have the arrows to just fire away hoping for the best. We need them to come closer for that. If not for the kids, we would be happy to just let them sit there while we tend to our wounded, but as it stands we need to go through them.”
“Right. I’ll get my gear." The fact Tom’s clothes were still being washed made this a rather uncomfortable experience as he grabbed the ammo belts and began strapping on the revolver holster, Jackalope having slept with her’s on.
They had taken a jaunt up to the higher levels, Jackalope following along behind him. A fact he learned to appreciate as he fainted again from trying to go up the stairs a tad to quickly, being caught by her as he fell back down.
“Thanks yet again, Jacky,” he went when he returned to reality, looking up at her worried face, running a hand down the side of her snout. Jackalope apparently decided this warranted being carried the rest of the way. Despite her usual stoicism on the subject even Tom could both feel and hear that she was struggling to do so though. She refused to let go though when he tried to squirm free, not that he put in a lot of effort.
They had a nice view over the enemy camp from up here. Tom had learned that Luke was in fact the captain of the guard, even if he had only been so for just over a day now, replacing his big brother who had fallen the day before. And he was definitely also still tired following yesterday. This needed to be done though if they were to have a chance of getting the kids here before dark.
“As you can see, they are just sitting there outside of accurate range. The best we could do is rain down arrows on them and hope we hit.”
“I can hit them just fine,” Tom stated, unslinging the rifle. He was running dangerously low on ammunition, not having brought any more than his belts would carry. They had not been planning on going to war after all. Right now, though, he kinda wished he had packed for one. “You might wanna plug your ears or you’ll end up like Jackalope. By the way, can you fix that?”
“Uhm. I don’t know, to be honest. Never heard of someone who lost their hearing like that,” Luke replied, sounding rather perturbed, as he plugged his ears. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“We need to get the kids so the bastards need to die. Fingers in ears,” Tom brought up the rifle, cranking the scope to max zoom. Peering down from the arrow slit he had a good resting spot, high ground, and perfect visibility. The range was at least 250 meters, and he was still feeling both rather dizzy and light-headed, not to mention just generally tired. It should be an easy shot; right now though he wasn’t so sure. ‘Come on you muppet, steady.’
The darklings were mostly milling about their own camp, or what was left of it. When the first one dropped, they turned to look at their fallen comrade. They all froze for a second as the crack of the rifle rang out over the desolate landscape. Then they sprang to life again, and most brought up shields as they formed up in a kind of shield ball.
“Well that got their attention,” Tom went as he chambered another round. Then they began advancing fast. “Ahr shit. Hey Jacky, grenade?” Tom asked, holding out his hand, before realizing the flaw in that request. He turned to Jackalope who was watching him intently.
Tom stepped aside so she could see, pointing at the approaching formation before trying to mime a big boom. Jacky seemed to get the idea as she got out the last grenade.
“Now you’ve done it!” Luke spurted out, the fear clear in his eyes. “Can you two fight? If so we need to get down to the lower barricades now!”
“Not quite yet. One last boom,” Tom replied, giving Jackalope a pat on the shoulder. Luke seemed to put two and two together, looking at Tom with an evil smile before tapping the side of his snout with a finger.
Tom held Jackalope’s shoulder to let her know when to throw. He had a feeling she would likely be better at this than him, considering he still found it very hard to figure out where a rock was going in this gravity. Still, they were definitely too far away yet, even if they were rapidly advancing on the keep. Tom was debating firing again when the huntress who had attacked him came rushing up into the room.
“What did you do? They are attacking again!” The panicked sounding woman exclaimed.
“Shot one, and just in case this doesn’t work you might want to be ready for them,” Tom replied, looking at her. The huntress gave him a look somewhere between incredulity and ‘I want to punch you’ before she went back downstairs, shouting at someone below. “Actually, you might want to join her. This might not work,” Tom continued, looking to Luke. The fearful expression returned to his face as he swallowed before nodding and turning to follow the huntress.
“I’m still sorry for dropping your gun... Again,” Jackalope went after a bit, as the two of them stood there watching the advancing formation. “I’ll make it up to you I swear.”
Tom could really use proper two-way communication right now. Not to mention, she was still talking entirely too loudly. ‘You saved my ass twice, you beautiful idiot,’ Tom despaired to himself. The fact she had chosen him over going for the gun also sat very well with him, so to hell with the thing getting dropped. Even if it might be too much to attribute to that action, it definitely helped with the whole, “what is she really after,” situation. Shiva’s warnings were also playing in his head at “I’ll make it up to you.” If it was gonna happen it should not be for that reason.
As he heard the alarm bell starting to sound below, he snapped back to the situation at hand. He began to worry about the fuze time. The formation was advancing fast so this needed to be timed right. Jacky might be better at hitting than him, but could she time it right? As Tom was contemplating whether he should take the throw instead, it dawned on him they had a damn lightning gun in the hangar. He didn't know what exactly the recharge time was, so to speak, but surely Jarix could manage a shot by now. But then again they would need to open the gate into the big hall, and that might provoke an attack from the air.
As he stood there pondering that whole situation he felt Jackalope bring up the lighter, and the fuze started sputtering away. Surprised, Tom lifted his hand from her shoulder, stepping back as she threw the deadly weapon down at the bastards below. It was a good throw even if she threw it sooner than he would have. He could hardly see the grenade as it plopped down in front of the formation which advanced unimpeded over it. ‘Yes now don’t run just yet. Come on, come on, no duds today,’ Tom repeated to himself. They had been lucky so far, but they needed a little more. He had honestly expected them to scatter at the sight of the grenade, but they just kept going.
With a thunderous boom and an awed gasp from Jackalope, the grenade detonated towards the rear of the formation, sending blood and bits flying everywhere. Darklings were flash cooked alive, while being torn apart by the screaming red hot shrapnel. The ones furthest away were thrown to the ground by the force of the blast but saved from the worst of it by their comrades. Tom pushed Jackalope aside, bringing up the rifle. The range had closed considerably as he began putting down the ones who still looked fit for a fight. It didn’t take long though before the ones who got up turned to run as arrows also began raining down from the keep. ‘I guess they can run then,’ Tom concluded as he switched to picking off those who were further away.
Those who were running weren't making much headway though. They were stumbling forwards, some of them crawling in fact. By the time he was finished firing, they were all done for. The ground below was littered with arrows and ruined corpses of what had been left of them.
“That is gonna suck to clean up,” Tom concluded, letting his gaze wander over the battlefield.
“Goddammit I love you,” Jackalope went before she coughed again, sending splatters of blood into Tom’s face. Her expression quickly changed to slightly horrified as she tried to wipe away the blood. “I’m so sorry.”
Tom just stifled a laugh. This was insanity. He had just gunned down peop… things, running from a fight. He damn near died yesterday, and he had done more killing than he had ever done before. Not even the ambush in Afghanistan had seen this much blood result from it. And here he was stifling a laugh because Jacky got excited…
‘Am I a psychopath?’ He found himself honestly pondering that as Jackalope pulled him into a more gentle than usual embrace. That was probably for the best, so she couldn't see the smile vanishing from his face. This was wrong on so many levels. But what was he supposed to do? Sit in a corner and be sad… Maybe say a few prayers for the fallen? He didn’t even know the names of any of the dead. Nor did he particularly want to.
“Right, come on, we’ve got kids to save,” Jackalope then went as she let him go after playing with his hair a bit. Putting an arm around him as they made their way down the stairs. Tom had damn near fallen over on the way up here, but the lesson had been learned.
‘Come on dude, snap out of it, there’s work to do,’ he cursed himself as they went down the levels towards the big hall. He needed to stay focused just a little longer.
They made it to the main hall around the same time as Luke and his remaining guards came up from below. The huntresses were all standing around with faces somewhere between fear and awe at what had just happened. In fact, it looked like most people were present at the moment.
“So, that’s them dealt with. Now everyone who can be here seems to be, so let’s do a quick round of introductions, shall we? My name is Tom, and as you can clearly see I am not a dragonette. I am human and a talented fire mage from far up north. I ask, if anyone ever asks about me, that is what you tell them. Nothing more nothing less. Okay?” Tom stated confidently to the gathered crowd. There were nods of agreement, though many of them were clearly confused by that. “This here is Jackalope, I believe some of you know her. Jarix, you up yet?” Tom questioned, looking towards the dragon.
“No, he is not. Nor do I think he will be for some time,” Zarko replied. “He won’t be flying either, yet. I won’t allow it. I’m Zarko by the way, Second lieutenant Royal guard.”
The crowd was looking rather bewildered at this point with all this information being dumped on them at once.
“I figured. Neither is Jacky. So that leaves you and whoever you people have left,” Tom continued, looking at Luke and the assembled local dragonettes.
“We have 4 who are mostly uninjured. Will that do?”
“It’s a four-hour flight each way and you will be carrying kids. Can you do that?” Tom questioned, genuinely curious. Lothal might be weighing in at around 45 to 50 kilos being nearly fully grown. Though he might fly at least some of the way himself of course.
“I think we will have to. What about Kalestine though? We can’t carry her.”
“I seriously doubt she wants to be carried. Do tell her Tom says ‘Hi’ and ‘I got her horn if she wants it,’ ” Tom replied. Zarko looked like she wanted to object to that. She didn’t interrupt though. She was the one currently holding on to the horn after all.
“I guess not no… I think there is nothing for it then. You are sure we got them all?” Luke questioned.
“No, but the ones left down there will be done for soon enough I think.” Tom replied, looking to Zarko for confirmation. He was fairly sure none of them would be getting up again though, unless someone was hiding. Luke looked a little displeased at that.
It was a horrible thing to say, but they were horrible creatures. Tom just hoped there wasn’t enough left of who they had been to know what was happening. Even if there was, he suspected the promise of the sweet embrace of death would help soothe the pain for them. Though he did make a mental note to go down there to finish the last ones off.
“I guess we just pray for some good luck and get going then. Mum, we won’t be back until nightfall. I hope our new friends can help keep you all safe in the meantime. But please don’t go outside unless you have to.”
“I won’t young lad. Now don’t go getting yourself killed. I can’t lose you too. That includes you as well, sweety,” the old lady replied, looking to the silvered huntress who had attacked Tom.
“Don’t worry, mum, I won’t.”
“Very good. Now go get those kids”
__________________________________________________________________________________
“Yup, I’m fairly sure that guy is following us,” Dakota replied as they were walking down the street.
“Think it’s just someone trying to figure out what we’re doing?” Sapphire responded as they kept walking like nothing had happened.
“I think he’s alone so maybe. Whether or not that means Flaxen or just someone curious, I don’t know.”
“If he’s alone I say we find out,” Sapphire replied, looking at Maiko. “Are we allowed to do that?”
“I mean, following someone is suspicious behaviour, I would be allowed to ask him why. Perhaps rather firmly. I’m not gonna be able to arrest him or anything like that though.”
“So then back alley or do we try and chase him down?” Balethon questioned.
“I say we just split. Sapphire you’re with me, you two just keep walking we are gonna pop into that shop for a bit,” Maiko replied as he turned left into someplace with pots, plates, and kitchen things. “See you in a bit."
“Let’s just have a browse around, maybe look at some fine plates,” Maiko went as they entered the rather nice looking store.
“I can do that. I’m guessing we are waiting for the guy to pass?” Sapphire replied as she closed the door.
“Yup.”
“He might run though, and I think I’m right in saying you're the fastest one here.”
“I don’t hold up traffic no,” Sapphire replied with a chuckle.
“Just look very interested in the plates. I'll keep an eye on him." Sapphire did as instructed. Before long a store clerk came over to ask if she had any questions. Sapphire knew nearly nothing about fine porcelain. Back home they ate using wooden plates mostly, even if Shiva had made some nice steel cutlery as a pastime.
“Would you like them gold-trimmed perhaps?”
“Ohh, I don’t know if I can afford that. But they look amazing. How much gold is used in that?”
“Oh it’s just gold foil, so not much. We do have some with an actual copper band running around the edge. They are very trendy, not to mention it helps with chipping.”
“Oh I say, those are pretty too. How expensive are they?”
“These are around five silver apiece.”
‘Ouch that’s expensive,’ Sapphire thought to herself as Maiko walked behind her, putting an arm around her waist.
“Now, now, dear, we have fine enough plates at home, but we need to get moving. We have to be at your aunt’s place for tea soon,” he went as he pulled her away. “Though I might be back for a surprise gift at some point.” He gave the clerk a wink as they walked out the store
Sapphire was rather taken aback, not saying anything as she was led out the store.
“Right, I take it you like plates then. He took the bait, let’s tail him.”
“They were very pretty though. Where is he?” Sapphire replied, trying to defend herself. She scanned the road ahead of them, soon catching a glimpse of the guy in question who was clearly staying with the others. “Huh, well that was easy.”
“No it’s not, he must not see us yet.”
“I’m a huntress, I know,” she replied. Though a guy in royal guard armor, not to mention her outfit, did definitely stand out around here quite a bit. The two of them moved to go with the crowds. The guy glanced back every now and again, though somehow not spotting them, and eventually he stopped checking behind him entirely, instead focusing on Dakota, Balethon, and Junior.
Sapphire and Maiko started closing the distance, moving closer and closer to the guy, until they were right on top of him. Dakota had glanced back a few times, causing him to almost try and hide behind other people or whatever he could find. All in all it didn’t look very professional.
Nor did he seem to have much general awareness as Sapphire and Maiko each slapped a hand on his shoulders.
“I think we need to have a little chat.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Soo... What should this little chat be about? Also, boom goes the last Darklings. Did you enjoy the chapter? if so do let me know down below. If not. feel free to curse me out down there aswell.
And just to reiterate Uni is starting tomorrow for me so the upload schedule might fall to pieces even more than it has the last few days. just so you are warned. They will come but I don't know when.
Until Next time have an awesome day.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
First Previous Next

The Jordan Love Pick & How to Move on

(Spoiler extended) Every reference and allusion to the Winds of Winter on NotABlog.

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.

Game Preview Week 16 Philadelphia Eagles (4-9-1) @ Dallas Cowboys (5-9)

Philadelphia Eagles (4-9-1) vs Dallas Cowboys (5-9)
As of this writing, the Eagles still have a shot to win the division, which is fortunate or unfortunate depending on what side of that argument you are on, however for that to happen the Redskins have to lose and the Eagles will have to take care of business tomorrow vs the Cowboys to keep that hope alive. The job will not be as easy as the first win where Andy Dalton missed the game and the Eagles faced Ben Narducci. Additionally the Eagles secondary is more banged up this time around. However offensively the Eagles will also look different as they will have Sanders and Desean Jackson who missed the first contest, but perhaps the biggest change will be at QB where Jalen Hurts will be making his 3rd start for the Eagles after two impressive outings vs the Saints and the Cardinals. Hurts will face a Cowboys defense that has been playing much better of late especially at causing turnovers and getting to the QB. Hurts will need to keep what he has been doing and escaping the pocket when he feels it closing on him and getting rid of it when he needs to. I think this game will come down to protecting the football and establishing the run, whichever team can do that should take the W and keep their playoff hopes alive with a Redskins loss.

Philadelphia Eagles (4-9-1) vs Dallas Cowboys (5-9)

As of this writing, the Eagles still have a shot to win the division, which is fortunate or unfortunate depending on what side of that argument you are on, however for that to happen the Redskins have to lose and the Eagles will have to take care of business tomorrow vs the Cowboys to keep that hope alive. The job will not be as easy as the first win where Andy Dalton missed the game and the Eagles faced Ben Narducci. Additionally the Eagles secondary is more banged up this time around. However offensively the Eagles will also look different as they will have Sanders and Desean Jackson who missed the first contest, but perhaps the biggest change will be at QB where Jalen Hurts will be making his 3rd start for the Eagles after two impressive outings vs the Saints and the Cardinals. Hurts will face a Cowboys defense that has been playing much better of late especially at causing turnovers and getting to the QB. Hurts will need to keep what he has been doing and escaping the pocket when he feels it closing on him and getting rid of it when he needs to. I think this game will come down to protecting the football and establishing the run, whichever team can do that should take the W and keep their playoff hopes alive with a Redskins loss.

General Information
Posting Rules and Guidelines
Remember to join us on Discord during the game!
New to the Eagles? Take a look at our New Fan Page!
Score Prediction Contest

Date
Sunday, December 27th, 2020

Game Time	Game Location
4:05 PM - Eastern	AT&T Stadium
3:05 PM - Central	1 AT&T Way
2:05 PM - Mountain	Arlington, TX 76011
1:05 PM - Pacific	Wikipedia - Map

Weather Forecast
Stadium Type: Retractable Roof
Surface: Grass
Temperature: 72°F
Feels Like: 72°F
Forecast: Clear. Windy in the morning.
Chance of Precipitation: 0%
Cloud Coverage: 6%
Wind: Northwest 12 MPH

Betting Odds
Oddsshark Information
Favorite/Opening Line: Eagles -2.5
OveUnder: 49.5
Record VS. Spread: Philadelphia 5-9, Dallas 4-10

Where to Watch on TV
FOX will broadcast Sunday’s game to a regional audience. Kenny Albert will handle the play-by-play duties and Jonathan Vilma will provide analysis. Shannon Spake will report from the sidelines.
TV Map - Week 16 TV Coverage Map

Radio Streams
List of Eagles Radio network member stations with internet broadcast availability
Radio.com 94.1 Desktop Streaming

Listen to Merrill Reese and Mike Quick
Calling the game on 94WIP and the Eagles Radio Network will be Merrill Reese, the NFL’s longest-tenured play-by-play announcer (44th season). Joining Reese in the radio booth will be former Eagles All-Pro wide receiver Mike Quick, while Howard Eskin will report from the sidelines.

Location	Station	Frequency
Philadelphia, PA	WIP-FM	94.1 FM and 610 AM
Allentown, PA	WCTO-FM	96.1 FM
Atlantic City/South Jersey	WENJ-FM	97.3 FM
Levittown, PA	WBCB-AM	1490 AM
Northumberland, PA	WEGH-FM	107.3 FM
Pottsville, PA	WPPA-AM	1360 AM
Reading, PA	WEEU-AM	830 AM
Salisbury/Ocean City, MD	WAFL-FM	97.7 FM
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA	WEJL-FM	96.1 FM
Salisbury/Ocean City, MD	WAFL-FM	97.7 FM
Salisbury/Ocean City, MD	WEJL-AM	630 AM
Salisbury/Ocean City, MD	WBAX-AM	1240 AM
Williamsport, PA	WBZD-FM	93.3 FM
Wilmington, DE	WDEL-FM/AM	101.7 FM
York/LancasteHarrisburg, PA	WSOX-FM	96.1 FM

Philadelphia Spanish Radio
Rickie Ricardo and Bill Kulik will handle the broadcast in Spanish on Mega 105.7 FM in Philadelphia and the Eagles Spanish Radio Network.

Location	Station	Frequency
Philadelphia, PA	LA MEGA	105.7 FM
Allentown, PA	WSAN	1470 AM
Atlantic City, NJ	WIBG	1020 AM; 101.3 FM

Dallas Radio
Dallas Cowboys Radio Network Brad Sham returns for his 42nd season in the Dallas Cowboys radio booth. Beloved by Cowboys fans, Sham's award winning play-by-play has provided the soundtrack to many of the most memorable moments in Dallas Cowboys history. Babe Laufenberg returns as the Network's full-time color analyst. A fixture on the sideline, veteran reporter Kristi Scales provides instant updates from the field.

Dallas Radio

Dallas Cowboys Radio Network Brad Sham returns for his 42nd season in the Dallas Cowboys radio booth. Beloved by Cowboys fans, Sham's award winning play-by-play has provided the soundtrack to many of the most memorable moments in Dallas Cowboys history. Babe Laufenberg returns as the Network's full-time color analyst. A fixture on the sideline, veteran reporter Kristi Scales provides instant updates from the field.

National Radio
NA

Satellite Radio

Station	Eagles Channel	Cowboys Channel
Sirius Radio	SIRI 137 (Streaming 825)	SIRI 83 (Streaming 823)
XM Radio	XM 380 (Streaming 825)	XM 225 (Streaming 823)
Sirius XM Radio	SXM 380 (Streaming 825)	SXM 225 (Streaming 823)

Eagles Social Media	Cowboys Social Media
Website	Website
Facebook	Facebook
Twitter	Twitter
Instagram	Instagram
Snapchat: Eagles	Snapchat: cowboys

NFC East Standings

NFC EAST	Record	PCT	Home	Road	Div	Conf	PF	PA	Net Pts	Streak
Football Team	6-8	.429	3-4	3-4	3-2	4-6	302	295	+&	1L
Cowboys	5-9	.357	3-4	2-5	1-3	4-6	339	433	-94	2W
Giants	5-9	.357	2-5	3-4	3-2	4-7	122	311	-67	2L
Eagles	4-9-1	.321	3-3-1	1-6	2-2	4-6	163	361	-58	1L

Series Information
The Dallas Cowboys lead the Philadelphia Eagles (69-54)
Series History
Head to Head Box Scores
First Game Played
September 30th, 1960 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX. Dallas Cowboys 25 - Philadelphia Eagles 27
Points Leader
The Dallas Cowboys lead the Philadelphia Eagles (2659-2424)
Coaches Record
Doug Pederson: 4-5 against the Cowboys
Mike McCarthy: 4-2 against Eagles
Coaches Head to Head
Doug Pederson vs Mike McCarthy: McCarthy leads 2-0
Quarterback Record
Jalen Hurts: Against Cowboys: 0-0
Andy Dalton: Against Eagles: 2-0
Quarterbacks Head to Head
Jalen Hurts vs Andy Dalton: First Meeting
Records per Stadium
Record @ Lincoln Financial Field: Cowboys lead the Eagles: 10-8
Record @ AT&T Stadium: Series tied: 6-6

Rankings and Last Meeting Information
AP Pro 32 Ranking
Eagles No. 22 - Cowboys No. 24
Record
Eagles: 4-9-1
Cowboys: 5-9
Last Meeting
Sunday, November 1st, 2020
Eagles 23 - Cowboys 9
Despite committing four turnovers and being held to a season-low seven first half points, Wentz and the Eagles bumbled their way to a crucial division win over an injury-ravaged Dallas Cowboys team led by rookie quarterback Ben DiNucci. The Cowboys opened the scoring on the game's opening drive with a 49-yard field goal by Greg Zuerlein. After a fumble by Wentz gave the Cowboys the ball back, the Eagles regained possession on a DiNucci fumble and took a 7–3 lead on Jalen Reagor's first career touchdown reception. The Cowboys responded with another Zuerlein field goal following Wentz's second fumble, and took a 9–7 halftime lead on a 59-yard field goal (mirroring the halftime score in Dallas in 2017, also played on Sunday Night Football). On the Eagles' second-half opening drive, Wentz would be picked off by Cowboys rookie cornerback Trevon Diggs, who returned the ball to the Dallas 31, but the Cowboys failed to capitalize when Zuerlein's ensuing 52-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right. The Eagles used the momentum swing to regain the lead 15–9 on a 9-yard Travis Fulgham touchdown reception. In the fourth quarter, T.J. Edwards strip-sacked DiNucci, and the ensuing fumble was recovered and returned 53 yards for a touchdown by Rodney McLeod. With the 23–9 win, Philadelphia improved to 3–4–1 on the season heading into their Week 9 bye.
Click here to view the Video recap
Click here to view the Stats Recap

Last 10 Meetings

Date	Winner	Loser	Score
11/1/2020	Eagles	Cowboys	23-9
12/22/2019	Eagles	Cowboys	17-9
10/20/2019	Cowboys	Eagles	37-10
12/9/2018	Cowboys	Eagles	29-23
11/11/2018	Cowboys	Eagles	27-20
12/31/2017	Cowboys	Eagles	6-0
11/19/2017	Eagles	Cowboys	37-9
1/1/2017	Eagles	Cowboys	27-13
10/30/2016	Cowboys	Eagles	29-23
11/8/2015	Eagles	Cowboys	33-27

Injury Reports	Depth Charts
Eagles	Eagles
Cowboys	Cowboys

2020 “Expert” Picks
Week 16 - "Expert" Picks

2020 Team Stats
Eagles Season Stats
Cowboys Season Stats

2020 Stats (Starters/Leaders)

Passing

Name	CMP	ATT	PCT	YDS	TD	INT	RAT
Hurts	49	89	55.1%	647	5	1	92.3
Dalton	165	256	68.0%	1549	11	6	85.6

Rushing

Name	ATT	YDS	YDS/G	AVG	TD
Sanders	149	810	73.6	5.4	5
Elliott	211	832	64.0	3.9	5

Receiving

Name	REC	YDS	YDS/G	AVG	TD
Fulgham	35	497	45.2	14.2	4
Cooper	82	952	68.9	11.6	5

Sacks

Name	Sacks	Team Total
Graham	7.0	44
Lawrence	5.5	26

Tackles

Name	Total	Solo	Assist	Sacks
Singleton	98	62	36	1.0
Smith	133	74	59	1.5

Interceptions

Name	Ints	Team Total
Singleton/McLeod/Mills/Riley/Epps	1	5
Diggs2	7

Punting

Name	ATT	YDS	LONG	AVG	NET	IN 20	TB	BP
Johnston	66	2909	66	47.7	41.3	21	5	0
Niswander	16	759	58	47.4	43.6	7	1	0

Kicking

Name	ATT	MADE	%	LONG	PAT
Elliot	18	13	72.2%	54	20/22
Zuerlein	34	27	79.4%	59	28/31

Kick Returns

Name	ATT	YDS	AVG	LONG	TD
Scott	25	532	21.3	46	0
Pollard	29	705	24.3	67	0

Punt Returns

Name	RET	YDS	AVG	LONG	TD	FC
Ward	17	116	6.8	22	0	17
Lamb	21	168	8.0	27	0	7

League Rankings 2020

Offense Rankings

Category	Eagles Stat	Eagles Rank	Cowboys Stat	Cowboys Rank
Total Offense	332.9	22nd	366.4	15th
Rush Offense	125.6	10th	109.2	19th
Pass Offense	207.4	27th	257.1	11th
Points Per Game	21.6	25th	24.2	18th(t)
3rd-Down Offense	37.0%	29th	40.5%	20th
4th-Down Offense	41.6%	27th	53.3%	18th(t)
Red Zone Offense (TD%)	62.5%	14th	53.5%	26th

Defense Rankings

Category	Eagles Stat	Eagles Rank	Cowboys Stat	Cowboys Rank
Total Defense	360.9	20th	383.6	24th
Rush Defense	125.6	23rd(t)	161.8	32nd
Pass Defense	235.1	16th	221.8	8th
Points Per Game	25.8	21st	30.9	31st
3rd-Down Defense	37.2%	6th	49.2%	29th
4th-Down Defense	38.9%	4th	47.4%	12th
Red Zone Defense (TD%)	65.8%	25th	62.8%	16th(t)

Team

Category	Eagles Stat	Eagles Rank	Cowboys Stat	Cowboys Rank
Turnover Diff.	-7	27th(t)	-6	25th(t)
Penalties/Game	6.4	24th	6.1	22nd
Penalty Yards/Game	49.8	18th	51.3	21st(t)

Connections
Eagles S Jalen Mills was born in Dallas and grew up in DeSoto, TX and went to Desoto High School.
Cowboys DB Coach Al Harris played 5 seasons for the Eagles from 1998-2002.
Cowboys DT Justin Hamilton played one season for the Eagles in 2017.
Cowboys Assistant Director of Video Stephen Gagliardino began his NFL career in 1995 as a ball boy with the Philadelphia Eagles when he was 16 years old, working training camp and game days at Veterans Stadium. He did that for four seasons before moving over to the Eagles video department in 1999, where he worked full time as an intern for three seasons (1999-2001).
Many Cowboys fans were born and raised in the Greater Philadelphia Area, however have no ties to Dallas nor have ever been to the city.
Eagles DT Fletcher Cox and Cowboys QB Dak Prescott played together at Mississippi State University when Prescott was a red shirt freshman.
Eagles OT Lane Johnson is from Groveton, TX and has family who are Cowboys fans including his grandmother who was told “Shut up, if you want to see 75” while she was rooting for the Cowboys.

2020 Pro Bowlers

Eagles	Cowboys
DT Fletcher Cox (Starter)
DE Brandon Graham (Starter)
C Jason Kelce (Starter)

General
Referee: Shawn Smith
Jalen Hurts is the only QB in NFL history to amass 500+ passing yards and 150+ rushing yards in their first 2 career starts (Week 14 vs. New Orleans – 167 passing, 106 rushing; Week 15 at Ar-izona – 338 passing, 63 rushing). In Week 15 at Arizona, Hurts became the first Eagles QB to register 300+ passing yards, 3+ passing TDs and 1+ rushing TDs in a single game since Michael Vick on 11/15/10 at Washington.
Fletcher Cox (T-5th among NFL DTs with 6.5 sacks this season) has collected all of his six career Pro Bowl nods in the last six seasons, tying Pete Pihos (1951-56) for the 2nd-longest streak in franchise history, behind Reggie White (seven, 1987-93). His six Pro Bowls are also the most ever by an Eagles DT.
Jason Kelce now owns the most Pro Bowl selections (four) by a center in Eagles history as well as the 2nd-most by any offensive lineman in team history, trailing only Jason Peters (seven). Kelce has started 103 consecutive regular-season contests, which is the longest active streak among NFL centers.
Brandon Graham has earned his first career Pro Bowl honor after leading the Eagles defense in sacks (7.0), TFLs (12) and QB pres-sures and hits (36) through 14 games. He is one of only three NFL players with 7.0 sacks, 12 TFLs and 2 FFs this season (also Haason Reddick and Za’Darius Smith).

Draft Picks

Eagles	Cowboys
WR Jalen Raegor	WR CeeDee Lamb
QB Jalen Hurts	CB Trevon Diggs
LB Davion Taylor	DT Neville Gallimore
S K’Von Wallace	CB Reggie Robinson II
OT Jack Driscoll	C Tyler Biadasz
WR John Hightower	DE Bradlee Anae
LB Shaun Bradley	QB Ben DiNucci
WR Quez Watkins
OT Prince Tega Wanogho
LB/DE Casey Toohill

Notable Off-season Additions

Eagles	Cowboys
S Will Parks	QB Andy Dalton
DT Javon Hargrave	TE Blake Bell
CB Nickell Robey-Coleman	OT Cameron Erving
CB Darius Slay	DE Aldon Smith
	CB Maurice Canady
	K Greg Zuerlein

Notable Off-season Departures

Eagles	Cowboys
S Malcom Jenkins	WR Tavon Austin
CB Ronald Darby	WR Randall Cobb
RB Jordan Howard	WR Devin Smith
WR Nelson Agholor	TE Jason Witten
OL Halapoulivaati Vaitai	OL Cameron Fleming
LB Kamu Grugler-Hill	C Travis Fredrick
RB Darren Sproles	DE Michael Bennett
DT Timmy Jernigan	DE Kerry Hyder
LB Nigel Bradham	DE Robert Quinn
	DT Maliek Collins
	DT Christian Covington
	DT Daniel Ross
	CB Byron Jones
	S Jeff Heath
	K Kai Forbath

Milestones
Eagles DE Vinny Curry (29) needs 1 sacks to move up to 18th on the Eagles all-time sack list tying DT Jerome Brown

Food for Thought

Dallas' Existential Connection to Philadelphia

::Movie Trailer Guy:: "In a world where people thought having someone named *Dallas Goedert on the Eagles was awkward, the truth is infinitely more awkward yet.*" If I were to tell you the county and city of Dallas might have never come to be, were it not for a prominent political figure in Philadelphian, Pennsylvanian, and national politics named Dallas would you very justifiably lord it over Cowboys fans? Over his career, George Mifflin Dallas served as the Mayor of Philadelphia, US Attorney for the Eastern District of PA, PA Attorney General, US Senator representing PA, Ambassador to Russia and later to the UK, and Vice President under Polk. He'd had Presidential ambitions, but they were dashed when his state support base of iron and coal interests turned their backs upon his tariff support about-face. Well, that and his unfortunate support for popular sovereignty, as it pertained to slavery. The prevailing theory is that in 1841 when the settlement of Dallas, Texas was established, it was named after this gentleman. And thus, Dallas would not exist today if it weren't for Philadelphia. You're welcome.

Matchups to Watch
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles Passing Attack vs. Cowboys Pass Defense
Dallas has a terrible defense that has profited off terrible QB play in their current two game win streak. They enter this contest Sunday going up against Jalen Hurts, who is easily the best QB they've faced since they got rolled by Lamar Jackson. This isn't to go out of the way and praise Jalen Hurts, it's just acknowledging the clear truth that Jalen Hurts is already better than Brian Allen and Nick Mullens. This Cowboys defense is short on talent and coaching which makes this matchup pretty juicy for the Eagles, even if they have a below average WR room. I've long said that Hurts should be an upgrade from Wentz whenever they decided to bench him as the 2020 version of the player was one of the worst QBs in the NFL. All Hurts had to do to be an upgrade from Wentz was eliminate the crushing negative plays, which he has. Additionally, he's been pretty good as a passer, showing growth from his time at OU in this short period of time. You'll never mistake him for having a live arm, but he plays with poise and throws with anticipation. That kind of time and anticipation can create a lot of plays through the air like we saw against the Cardinals. This offensive coaching staff still has the kid gloves on for Hurts with what they are calling, but what the offense has done thus far should be able to move the ball against this mediocre defense. Dallas struggles to defend anything which gives Reagor a chance to actually do something. Desean Jackson will play Sunday and should make an impact in however many snaps he's able to play.
Eagles Rushing Offense vs Dallas Rushing Defense
The only thing Dallas does worse than pass defense is rush defense. Since Hurts has been named the starter in Philly, the Eagles rushing attack has gotten much better. The single biggest reason for this is how defenses have to account for Jalen Hurts in the running game. The Eagles offensive line has been quite banged up this year but is still pretty good at creating holes in the running game for the RBs. Hurts naturally adds a different element to this area of the offense. Miles Sanders is slowly getting better at reading rushing lanes and actually getting tough yards vice trying to bounce carries outside. Oftentimes the OL will create rushing lanes for modest gains that can keep the offense on schedule but the RB tries to do too much and costs the offense yards. The Cowboys are the worst in the NFL allowing 5 yards per carry to opposing offenses. They've allowed the most 20+ rushing plays in the NFL. They've allowed the most first downs rushing. And they've allowed the most yards rushing in the NFL. This is a bad rush defense going up against the rushing attack that has always been able to create on the ground when they commit to it enough. I wouldn't expect a different outcome here on Sunday.
Eagles Secondary vs. Dallas Wide Receivers
This is one of the biggest mismatches in the game on Sunday but has less of a significance with Andy Dalton in at QB vice Dak Prescott, though it is a bigger challenge than Ben DiNucci. The Eagles will have Darius Slay on Sunday after clearing the concussion protocol this week. He'll likely see a lot of Amari Cooper on Sunday even though Schwartz hasn't used Slay a ton as a travel corner this season. Even if he does, the Cowboys still have Michael Gallup and CeeDee Lamb at receiver and they should be expected to win their matchups against the Eagles secondary consistently on Sunday. Avonte Maddox will miss the game; even if he played, he’s not good enough to give Gallup or Lamb much of a fight. As always, the Eagles will need their defensive line to create pressure and force Andy Dalton into mistakes which will aid the secondary; that's a matchup I would expect the Eagles DL to win pretty easily. It's another thing to ensure the Eagles secondary has this WR room in check. This secondary needs to play disciplined throughout this contest to give the defensive line time to feast. One major feature of opposition game planning we regularly see used against our defense is the quick passing game. Part of this is due to the nature of our secondary. The other reason for this is it helps neutralize a pass rush. The difference between 2.3 and 2.5 seconds in average time to throw is massive in a DL/OL mismatch like this one. Dalton is a fine backup QB at this point in his career and he is more than capable of making a mediocre secondary like Philly pay for mistakes.

Special thanks abenyishay and MikeTysonChicken for his help in creating this Game Preview.

Week 13 Match-up Preview Thread: The Iron Bowl; CFB Belt Match: #1 Alabama Crimson Tide vs. #24 Auburn Tigers

I am 27 years old, make $75,000, live in California and work as a Video Game Associate Producer

Hello everyone! Man I wrote an absolute essay, I apologize in advance!! The one disclaimer: I of course didn’t mention COVID precautions much, but rest assured, I am CONSTANTLY masked and keeping an obscene distance from every other human around me. My paranoia is way too high to do any less. (Also, fyi, my pronouns are They/She, in that order)
TW: Mentions of Eating Disorder
Section One: Assets and Debt
Savings: $5,000
Checking account balance: $2,000
Credit card debt: $3064.88 (this is a charge-off from about 5 years ago. Because of this, I keep my “active” credit card balance at $0 at all times)
Student loan debt: $40,000 (BA in Film; down from ~50k!)
Section Two: Income
Income Progression:
· Retail through college, ranging from $8/hr-$13/hr, depending on where I was living
· VFX Coordinator (6months post-grad): $12/hr. Found out they were taking advantage of my lack of experience when I found out how much my direct coworkers were making.
· Raise ~5months later: $19/hr (to match what the rest of the department was getting)
· Raise (again) ~6months later: $50k salary (baby’s first salary!)
· Got laid off after 2 years with that company and freelanced for a while before going back to retail, ~$15/hr
· VFX Coordinator: $19/hr. After 9 months of unemployment / underemployment I was back in! But I was only brought on as a contractor / permalancer, and this job ended up sucking so bad.
· Video Game Coordinator: $50k. Left my previous job after a year of terrible conditions, and made an industry switch after getting majorly burnt out on the VFX production pipeline.
· Associate Producer (games):$75k - Current job! So happy to be where I am now. The switch to games has been the best thing I’ve done in my career.
Monthly Take Home: $4,219 ($2109 every other Friday)
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: ~$900/month for my half (it varies because utilities are “included” in the bill)
Retirement contribution: Literally just got the enrollment for this at my current job, so nothing yet.
Savings contribution: ~$500-1000/month
Student loan payments: Currently paused due to COVID, but I’m planning on dumping 100% of my savings into them right before interest kicks back in. I’m so so tired of having these hang over my head and want to be aggressive as possible. I AM tempted to wait and see if forgiveness does end up being part of Biden’s 100-day plan though. Please give me advice, smart money people!!
Donations: I budget ~$50/month to spend as I see fit.
Electric: Included-ish in rent
Wifi: My wonderful darling partner pays for our WiFi.
Cellphone: $90 send to my dad every month
Subscriptions:
· Sunday Scaries CBD: $39.38
· Curology: $61.70 (every other month)
· Meowbox (yes I have a subscription box for my cats): $22.95 (every other month)
· Apple cloud: $.99
· Nintendo Online: $3.99
· Netflix / Hulu / Disney+ / HBO / etcetc: We absolutely mooch off our families, bless
Gym membership: $19.99 (I use Street Parking, a CrossFit-style online training program. I paid $200/month prior to the pandemic for my box so I’m thrilled at these savings)
Pet expenses: ~$50/month (my partner and I switch off on the essentials like food + litter)
Car payment: $203.86 ($4000 remaining)
Car insurance: $171
Regular therapy: $120 ($60 per session, every other week)
Registered Dietician: $660/month ($165/week. I’m in recovery from a long-term eating disorder, and while this is a huge money dump, it’s honestly the most important piece of my mental health ~journey~)
Medications: $100/month (I’ve been using Cerebral for my psychiatry, but since my health insurance just kicked in, this is going to go way down. I basically needed an insurance stop-gap, since I have Bipolar and cannot go without medication)
CandidCo Aligners: $87.50
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 and no. I was definitely the main source of any pressure to go to college. There were a few members of my family who expected it, but had I not, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a thing, as long as I was working. I wish I had understood the financial implications way more, since I was totally on my own, and just kinda… expected to be able to pay it all off after I got out? Maybe I would have thought differently about my arts degree if I had that kind of financial literacy at 18.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Very, very minimal. For a large part of my youth, we were quite poor, and I never really understood the full depth of what was going on. I absorbed a lot of the negative attitudes my parents had as a result of that (I absolutely hated the idea of credit cards etc). I didn’t really have an opportunity to learn the value of money, let alone any more thorough conversations.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I moved to a VHCOL city for college, and needed to work if I wanted to eat, so within about a month of moving I had two jobs. The first was at that ubiquitous bath bomb store, and the 2nd was a major department store chain. As a teen / kid I did odd jobs (helping on construction sites etc), but those definitely weren’t “jobs” as much as “things my parents bribed me to do”.
Did you worry about money growing up?
100% of the time. Like. Always. When the 2008 crash happened, we lost our house, and were homeless for awhile before moving into a hotel for several years. Eventually, we moved in with my grandparents, where we stayed until after I left for college. Even if I didn’t fully grasp what was happening or why, the whole experience definitely shaped me in some huge ways, especially with how I feel about financial security. I wasn’t able to have 99% of the experiences of my peers (I went to pretty wealthy demographic schools), which left me pretty jaded.
Do you worry about money now?
Still yes, but it’s different, for sure. Like, I’m making enough to live fairly comfortably, but I’m still incredibly frugal, mostly motivated by my debt. I would love to be able to own a home some day, but considering it’s going to take me 5-10 years to pay off my loans, I can’t wrap my head around how long it would take me to save for a down payment.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
Similarly hard to answer. I definitely didn’t have much support starting pretty young, but I wasn’t totally independent until after college. My parents still bailed me out a few times in college, which I understand put them in a very rough position. Probably a year after college was when I was all the way on my own, but I was building to there starting when I was like, 12. Thankfully now my parents are doing much, much better, and I know if anything catastrophic happened I could turn to them.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope, and I likely never will. Much of my family has the “it’s my money I’m going to spend it on me before I go” mentality, which honestly, respect. Otherwise, no one in my family is really in a position to have a much of money to pass on once they’re gone.
Money Diary!
Monday:
7:30: Up a little late today, but it’s fine because I’m exhausted from the weekend and want to cuddle my cats. My partner N and I drove down to LA (where we actually / normally live) to finally get my car up here with us. Two ~6hr drives in 48hrs is rough on the body. (For some context: We left our apartment in LA over the summer to come up to a waaaay less densely populated area and live in a home of N’s family. I am endlessly thankful for this privilege. I’m pretty severely immunocompromised, so it’s nice to be able to go outside now without a panic attack.)
9:00: Monday mornings are always absolutely chaotic with meetings, but today is particularly bad. It’s the start of the last sprint up until we break for the holidays, so I feel particularly crunched to get things wrapped up. During one of our meetings, I remember that I have a $120 balance on my credit card and get that taken care of. ($120)
1:45: a 15-minute break in meetings to inhale some food! I microwave a can of Amy’s Vegetable and Barley soup and absolutely destroy it.
5:00: Last call of the day wraps up an hour over time, but I’m actually really happy about it. At the end it turned into the small team I work closest with just chatting for an hour about games that we like, game theory, and just.. having fun. I really love my team and considering I started this job in the pandemic, I’m so happy to feel as close and integrated with everyone as I do. I know the “my coworkers are like family” thing is potentially toxic and overplayed, but I genuinely feel that way! It also could totally be influenced by the fact that they’re the people that I interact with most (read: exclusively) other than my partner, and god, I miss human interaction.
5:30: Finally done-ish with work, and I desperately need to get away from a screen. I’m exhausted, but reeeaaally should work out. Fitness is super important for my mental wellbeing, and I took a long break and felt that, hard. I commit do doing something, which is a big part of the program / community I’m in.
7:00: Done and showered. N is finishing up our dinner of pasta and vegan meatballs. We watch Barry while we eat (N got me hooked and it’s soooo good guys), and eventually break out some ice cream (non-dairy Netflix & Chill from Ben&Jerry’s, one of my favs).
10:00: Head to bed and do all the boring stuff (skincare, brush teeth, blah blah blah). N and I cuddle watching It’s Always Sunny, and have some intimate time. I pass out around midnight, very much past my old lady bedtime.
Daily Total: $120
Tuesday:
7:00: Alarm, not happening
8:00: Whoops! Apparently I didn’t hit snooze. Up way too late, so I rush through getting ready. I really play with fire and drive out to the closest town to pick up doughnuts from a local vegan spot. ($10.00)
9:00: Rush in to hop on my first call of the morning from my phone. During the call I open my running Money Diary doc and it’s gone! Ugh. Thankfully I have a pretty good memory of how yesterday went, but sorry in advance if it feels… summary-y? Anyways, I eat a doughnut while half paying attention to a call I really should be paying at least 75% attention to.
10:30: I have a longer break between meetings and really need to get some head-down work done. It heavily involves playing a video game, woe is me. I grab another doughnut while I dive in.
1:30: Another can of soup for lunch – N is out getting groceries because our stock is abysmal. He’s getting stuff to get us through to the holidays, as were bunkering down starting Sunday. This run is highly motivated by the list I gave him for Hanukkah feast prep!
5:00: I’ve been staring at a screen for far too long and call it a day. N was out taking photos and told me it’s amazing out, so I throw on my airpods, blast my incredibly embarrassing playlist, and head out. I walk along the shore and I’m blown away – the waves have never been this high, there’s practically no beach! I usually walk / run in the morning, so it’s a rare treat to watch the sun go down over the ocean. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to see all the fancy houses’ Christmas lights! About halfway through my walk it’s 100% dark, and since there are no streetlights or sidewalks here, it’s a little dodgy.
6:00 When I get home N is making dinner – roast chickpeas and veg with field roast sausages. He also asks me to venmo him for groceries without giving me a number, a thing that happens regularly. We’ll see how long it takes for that charge to come through.
9:30: I have no idea what I’ve been doing for the last few hours, but I’ve definitely mostly been scrolling through my phone. Ugh. I’m feeling super drained so I decide to start getting ready for bed while N continues to play video games. I fall asleep around 11, after more messing around on my phone.
Daily Total: $10.00
Wednesday:
8:00: Boy I’ve really been oversleeping this week. I probably need it, but it’s still frustrating. Go through the AM motions, cuddle with the cats, and head downstairs to log into work. I grab the last half a doughnut and buckle in for another busy day – although it looks like it’s starting to lighten up.
1:00: I’m starving and take a quick lunch break – I wrap yesterday’s leftovers in a tortilla with some hummus and call it a day. I also spend some time staring at my credit score. I decide to finally take care of the charge-off on my account and opt to settle it for 50% (I argued for a pay-for-delete and it was a no-go). I know this might hurt my credit at first, but I really hope in the long run this does more good than bad. I curse my poor life decisions made as a college student, even though I ran up this credit card to survive. ($1,532.44, from savings)
2:30: Time for my annual review, which is always terrifying. This goes surprisingly well – almost nothing but positive feedback and some very light constructive criticism, all for things that I’ve been working on. I also find out I’m getting a slight raise and a bonus! I’ve never gotten a bonus before!! This really helps balance out my buyers remorse over paying off my charge-off earlier. I text my dad and let him know, and while he’s quite proud and happy for me, he also reminds me about my phone bill. D’oh. I send that to him right away. ($90, listed in monthly payments)
5:30: I’ve done basically nothing since my review, other than reply to a few emails that came in and looked at apartments back in LA I can’t afford. I move to the couch and start the dinner convo – N says he’ll start on a tofu & veg stir fry in a bit. I’m way too drained to think about working out, even though today’s workout looks fun.
7:00: Therapy! My bi-weekly therapy has started to become… less than useful, but I really like my therapist as a person. It’s become a bit of a weird dynamic since I started taking medication again, and I know I should shift to using my health insurance to find a better fit, but I’ve been seeing her for a year and honestly don’t know how to leave a therapist?? It’s fine. I still enjoy my sessions with her, even if its not the groundbreaking therapy I’ve had in the past. ($60, listed in monthly payments)
8:00: We watch Black Christmas (the remake from last year) and it’s… really bad. But we’re both scrolling through twitter during, so whatever. Afterwards I accept that I’m falling asleep on the couch and head to bed. Why am I so tired this week?? This comes and goes and it’s always a bit concerning, but there’s not much I can do about it. I’m out hard by 11.
Daily Total: $1,532.44
Thursday:
7:30: I wake up closer to on-time, but definitely don’t get up. One of the cats is at the end of the bed sleeping on his back, which is way too cute for me to get up and disturb, so I snuggle up with him for another 30 minutes. Eventually I hop out of bed, remembering that it’s the first day of Hanukkah! I throw on my new ugly Hanukkah sweater (it’s got cats and says “Meow-zel Tov”, of course) and check into work. Today is soooo much lighter, and I’m thrilled about it since I’ll be cooking this afternoon.
12:30: Break for lunch – I take the lazy way and make some instant ramen. Love that one of the cheap ones are vegan, it’s a great easy staple to have on hand!
1:30: Weekly appointment with my RD. I’ve made an incredible amount of progress with my eating disorder since I started seeing her about 8 months ago. My life w/t food is night and day from before. I definitely still struggle with body image / body neutrality, and I’ve put on a noticeable (but unknown – I left my scale behind) amount of weight and it’s a challenge when my clothes fit differently than before. But I’m working on it! I genuinely think I’m going to “graduate” out of this program soon, I’m hoping by March (partially motivated by the cost, tbh). ($165, listed in monthly costs).
2:00: After my appointment I run out to the grocery store to grab a few things N missed – namely Gelt and bread. I’m going to teach him how to gamble (aka the Dreidel game) tonight and we need the awful chocolate coins to complete the experience. Thankfully I find some pareve coins, so I don’t have to worry about there being dairy. There are a few other odds and ends we need too, since we’re starting our full-lockdown this weekend, and I go a little crazy (ice creams, treats, cereal, etc etc). ($46.24)
4:00: I start my cooking prep while watching The Game Awards with my coworkers (virtually, of course). This event is way less about the actual awards and way more about fun trailer drops. There are a few that I’m pretty into, based on what I see.
7:00: Finally done cooking! I made latkes (with applesauce, always applesauce) and a savory spinach kugel. Hilariously, I hate frying food, so this is a good holiday for me, ha. Everything came out super good, and I’m so pleased since I am NOT the cook of the house. Pretty much as soon as we finish eating I fry up the sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) I had prepped and get those done for a dessert. Doughnuts are hard, and these weren’t perfect by any means, but they tasted good! We throw on Seinfeld in the backround, our go-to comfort show (and honestly, appropriate).
9:00: I’m exhausted, what’s new. N so kindly starts cleaning up the kitchen for me and packaging leftovers, bless. We both head to bed and I pass out at 11, according to my Fitbit.
Daily Total: $46.24
Thursday:
7:00: Actually wake up on-time today, but stay in bed for about 45 minutes cuddling the cat and scrolling socials. Force myself out of bed so that I have enough time to go for a walk and listen to the new Taylor Swift album (first take: not as good as Folklore, but “no body, no crime” is a bop).
10:00: Finish up my first meeting and make some breakfast – Cheerios & banana.
12:00: Run to the post office to pick up some boxes. I have to send a return and mail a gift out before they close today! When I’m home, I heat up some leftover kugel and have that with more applesauce.
3:00: Last meeting done, back to the post office to actually ship. I did not think this through. To send two packages it costs $30.10 because I accidentally grabbed flat-rate packages because I’m a millennial who doesn’t know how mail works . Back home to finish up my odds and ends for the day, before I remember I have to level up my DnD character before our session tonight! ($30.10)
9:30: DnD goes great! It’s honestly the main non-work interaction I have, and it’s with a group of dudes (and N) that I hadn’t had much contact with since college and really love. We’re definitely more of a “lets goof off and do dumb stuff” kinda team, which is my favorite. We also all talk about Cyberpunk 2077, which everyone outside of our household has been playing. I have some very strong (not-great) opinions about it, but I’m glad they’re all really enjoying it. We might pick it up eventually but definitely not until I get my next-gen console, which I’m putting off until January when all the insanity dies down (and some bugs get ironed out).
11:00: We finish up Barry (it’s really so good) and head to bed. We catch High Fidelity (the movie, not the show) on TV, and both remember how much we love it. I pass out pretty shortly after that ends.
Daily Total: $30.10
Saturday:
9:00: Technically awake… but N and I stay in bed until 11 cuddling each other and the cats, and scrolling through Twitter. I really, really gotta break that habit of socials-first-thing. Once I finally get up, I take my time through my skincare and realize it’s time to shave my face (hairy Eastern-European genes whaddup). I should do my brows too, but I pluck about 2 hairs before deciding my will is not strong enough.
12:00: It rained last night, so I get myself ready to head out for a long walk. It’s so wonderful and smells so good out. I just love being somewhere with nature all around, which is so foreign as someone who has always been a “city person” first and foremost. It’s one of the major revelations the pandemic has given me. I stop at my favorite coffee shop on my way and get my tried-and-true peppermint mocha with soy (7.50). The big downside to this town – it’s like a Covid bizzarro world. Outdoor dining is still a thing (which we absolutely do not take advantage of), and there’s a damn nail salon open. During the week, pretty much everyone wears a mask when they’re around others. On the weekends, it seems like a bunch of people come in from out of town, and they’re all the worst version of entitled. Mask usage goes way down and people are pretty insufferable about it. I do my best to keep extreme distance and be as passive aggressive about it as possible. When I get back, I’m thoroughly damp and start rage cleaning the house. ($7.50)
3:00: Got sufficiently through cleaning the house for the day, and realize I have yet to eat any real food. Whoops. My RD is going to want to talk about this, even though I genuinely haven’t been hungry. I have a bowl of Cheerios with a banana, and add some snacky things to bulk it up a bit. Time to relax a bit with garbage tv (HGTV is my heroin).
5:30: One of my cats starts acting weird (hissing and yowling at nothing) and I have an absolute breakdown and demand we rush to the vet. I am wailing the entire way, and pace in the parking lot until we find out that he’s absolutely fine, and just had worms. What a drama king!!! N pays for the vet because I’m in no state to communicate with anyone. When we get home I follow him around and give him as much love as he’ll allow (which is a lot, tbh). When I’m more relaxed N pours us some wine and we watch “Underwater”, the movie that’s basically “Aliens” but… underwater. It’s alright – the production design and creature design are absolutely incredible though!
11:00: After I head to bed I hear my cat hissing and yowling again. We jump on it and start paying close attention to him. After watching him for a bit, we come to the conclusion that he must be constipated, poor thing. I give him some pumpkin puree until I can go get him some more wet food in the morning. My anxiety is definitely way high tonight over all of this.
Daily Total: $7.50
Sunday:
9:30: It’s raining out, so we have a bit of a lazy morning in bed, while keeping an eye on the cats. He manages to go to the bathroom a little without screaming after, so I think that’s progress! After a bit I run out to the pet store and get an obscene amount of their favorite wet food, so we don’t run out again (at least for a while). While I’m there I grab a few holiday-themed cat toys, which my spoiled children absolutely don’t need, but always deserve. ($34.88)
1:00: Since it’s raining there’s no way I’m going on the run I had hoped to. Guess that means a lazy Sunday! We light the fireplace, throw on the TV, and I make a Chik’n salad wrap. I put off eating too long two days in a row, ughhhh.
5:00: Welp, very little has happened today. I get up to finally get the rest of the laundry done, and pick up the cat toys for N to vacuum. I start prepping my work / life week until dinner, while we have The Iron Giant on in the background. The stopped-up kitty seems to be totally fine now, but we’ll be keeping an eye on him over the next few days to monitor his water consumption and bathroom habits.
8:00: I do a 30-minute yoga flow (Yoga with Adriene forever!) before taking a shower and doing my long CGM shower routine. Full-on wash day takes forever, and I probably should have done this way earlier in the day.
10:00: Finally wrapping up the ~ process ~. Thoroughly feeling the Sunday night blues, so I pop a few CBD gummies, make sleepytime tea, and finish my pm routine before calling it a night.
Total for week: $1,781.16
Grocery + Dining Out: $63.74
Fun + Entertainment: $0
Home + Health: $0
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transportation: $0
Debt: $1,652.44
Other: $64.98
Lastly, reflect on your diary!
Man I’m boring, huh. This was a fairly normal-spend week for me in quarantine, other than the debt payment obviously. The main fluctuation I experience is in groceries, depending on which of us does the main run / N actually sending through a Venmo request, ha. This was also a very low-energy week for me, I usually work out 4-6 days/week, which I’m trying to be gentler on myself about missing. I feel like I’m doing pretty good, I’m definitely quite frugal with hopes of building up my savings / paying off my loans. I feel like I’m quite uneducated about my finances, and would seriously love to hear thoughts & advice from this group of money-savvy folx!

current iron bowl odds video

Visit ESPN to view College Football odds, point spreads and moneylines from this week's games Get the latest odds, spreads and betting lines from this week's games, as well as full coverage of the National Football League from USA TODAY Alabama vs. Auburn odds, line, spread: 2019 Iron Bowl picks, predictions from proven projection model SportsLine's advanced computer model simulated Saturday's 2019 Iron Bowl 10,000 times. The 2020 Iron Bowl kicks off at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS. The latest Alabama vs. Auburn odds from William Hill Sportsbook list the Tide as 24-point favorites. The over-under for total points expected ... The current odds suggest that many fans think that Daenerys is unlikely to claim the throne, despite her being on of the most obvious choices in earlier seasons. The Alabama Crimson Tide take on the Auburn Tigers in the annual Iron Bowl showdown at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS on Saturday. Alabama is favored by 24 points at William Hill Sportsbook, while the Over-Under is set at 64.5 (see up-to-date odds for every game this week on our college football odds page).Before making any Alabama vs. Auburn picks, you NEED to check out the college football predictions ... And the Iron Bowl is being played on the Plains. No surprise then that one-loss Alabama is only a slight favorite to win the game for the second straight year, according to the opening line ... Iron Bowl Opening Odds. Team Spread Moneyline Total; Auburn Tigers +23.5 (-105) +1040: N/A: Alabama Crimson Tide-23.5 (-115)-2500: N/A: Odds taken Nov. 22 from FanDuel. Tide Roll Into Iron Bowl. Alabama has been historically dominant in 2020. They haven’t played a single close game, and that trend continued against Kentucky. The Tide were victorious by a score of 63-3, and the 14-0 mark in ...

current iron bowl odds top

Predicting ALL 32 TEAMS 2019 NFL Record Game-by-Game - YouTube

TOP 4 MOST ICONIC POKER FIGHTS OF ALL TIME!Help us to 100K Subscribers - http://goo.gl/BvsafoWebsite: http://pokergo.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/PokerGO... There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the mysterious life of boxer Tommy Morrison, however recent evidence has shed light on possibly the darkest se... In this episode of the PokerStars big game, Doyle Brunson tangles with a wealthy CEO. The businessman has pocket kings and feels invincible. On the turn he m... We are excited to share this video that shows some of the work we're doing with Trent Dilfer, retired NFL QB and current Head Coach of Lipscomb Academy Football in Nashville. #neufitrfp #neufit. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. You fell for my scam, you actually clicked the video.Halloween Merch https://theodd1sout.com/collections/halloweenSecond Channel https://www.youtube.com/... Predicting ALL 32 Team's 2019 NFL Record Game-by-GameAFCCleveland Browns - 0:00Cincinnati Bengals - 2:05Baltimore Ravens - 4:08Pittsburgh Steelers - 6:33Kans... How to Play Craps is a beginner craps video I made with my son. This was his very first time playing craps and he had a lot of good questions. Hopefully as y... Just one mans unpopular opinion Twitter https://twitter.com/Theodd1soutWebsite https://theodd1sout.com/ Ever wonder how the NFL got to be where it is today? Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Evolution of the NFL.#NFL100The NFL Throwback is your home for all thing...

Week	Alabama 7-0(7-0)	Result	Auburn 5-2(5-2)	Result
1	BYE	N/A	BYE	N/A
2	BYE	N/A	BYE	N/A
3	BYE	N/A	BYE	N/A
4	Missouri 3-3(3-3)	W 38-19	Kentucky 3-5(3-5)	W 29-13
5	Texas A&M^{^#6} 5-1(5-1)	W 52-24	Georgia^{^#14} 5-2(5-2)	L 6-27
6	Ole Miss 3-4(3-4)	W 63-48	Arkansas 3-5(3-5)	W 30-28
7	Georgia^{^#14} 5-2(5-2)	W 41-24	South Carolina 2-6(2-6)	L 22-30
8	Tennessee 2-5(2-5)	W 48-17	Ole Miss 3-4(3-4)	W 35-28
9	Mississippi State 2-5(2-5)	W 41-0	LSU 3-3(3-3)	W 48-11
10	BYE	N/A	BYE	N/A
11	BYE	N/A	BYE	N/A
12	Kentucky 3-5(3-5)	W 63-3	Tennessee 2-5(2-5)	W 30-17

Player	Position	Status	Reported	Notes
Trey Sanders	RB	Out For Season – Undisclosed	Mon, Nov 9	Sanders is expected to miss the remainder of the 2020 season as he was involved in a car accident.
Jaylen Waddle	WR	0Ut Indefinitely – Ankle	Fri, Nov 20	Waddle is in danger of missing the remainder of the 2020 season after undergoing surgery to repair a fractured ankle.
Slade Bolden	WR	Ques Sat – Ankle	Mon, Nov 23	Bolden is tending to a twisted ankle, and it is unclear if he will be available Saturday against Auburn.

Player	Position	Status	Reported	Notes
Alec Jackson	OL	Ques Sat – Undisclosed	Mon, Nov 23	Jackson was forced from the last game with an undetermined injury, and it is unknown if he will be active against Alabama on Saturday.
Brodarious Hamm	OL	Ques Sat – Undisclosed	Sun, Nov 22	Hamm has an unspecified injury, and it is unclear if he will play Saturday against Alabama.
Tank Bigsby	RB	Ques Sat – Hip	Sat, Nov 21	Bigsby was lifted from the last game with a right hip injury, and it remains to be seen if he will face Alabama on Saturday.
K.J. Britt	LB	Early Dec – Thumb	Fri, Nov 20	Britt is recovering from surgery to repair torn ligaments in his right thumb, and he is expected to be sidelined until at least the start of December.
Brandon Council	OL	Out For Season – Knee	Mon, Oct 26	Council is sidelined with a knee injury, and he is expected to miss the remainder of the 2020 season.
Daniel Foster Allen	DE	Out Indefinitely – Undisclosed	Sat, Oct 24	Foster-Allen has been sidelined due to an undetermined injury. It has yet to be established when he will make his first appearance of the season.
Jay Hardy	DE	Out Indefinitely – Foot	Sat, Oct 24	Hardy has been sidelined with a foot ailment, and it is unknown when he will suit up for his season debut.
Josh Marsh	LB	Out For Season – Personal	Tue, Aug 25	Marsh will sit out the duration of the 2020 campaign due to a personal reason.
Chandler Wooten	LB	Out For Season – Personal	Tue, Aug 25	Wooten has informed the program that he will not take part in the 2020 season due to a personal decision.

current iron bowl odds

current iron bowl odds - win

(Spoilers Extended) The Optimist's Gambit: Why George RR Martin Always Thinks He's Closer Than He Actually Is, Part 2: THE WINDS OF WINTER