It's been a while, but my memory was that he had a huge sulk about the suggested edits, and was too famous to be pushed on it.
somewhat. It's the infamous "5 year gap" that he waffled about over and over until he just decided "fuck it" and shit out 3-4 books worth of filler to pass the time until the story picked up again. He's shit out 2 of those bullshit filler books so far and he lost the plot and has been dragging his feet for 13 years so far on shitting out the 3rd book of useless filler until the 5 year training montage is complete and we can actually pick up the story again.
Since many of you seem unfamiliar with the books, originally the first 3 books end with all the main characters entering into rocky balboa style training montages where basically nothing fucking happens for a while all the kids grow up and become adults and masters at something and then we will pick up again 5 years later:
Arya begins Faceless man training
Bran begins training with 3 eyed raven
Jon learns to be lord commander of the night's watch
Dany learns how to be a ruler (and her dragons grow large enough to be siege weapons)
Sansa learns how to be a lying manipulative
cunt schemer under the tutelage of little finger
Samwell becomes a Maester
All this is happening while Westeros basically collapses under the incompetent rule of Cersei who ends up being deposed/killed before we even come back to the story and a Aegon + the Golden Company has taken control of King's landing, with assistance from the Martell's of Dorne.
he couldn't figure out how to do a "5 years later..." skip while at the same time explaining how the Lannisters (outside of Tyrion, who is serving as hand of the queen for Dany) have all been wiped out and Dorne/golden company alliance now rules Westeros lead by Aegon fucking Targaryen (the first born son of Dany's brother Rhaegar, rightful king of Westeros, allegedly killed during the lannister sacking of king's landing by the mountain, except he was secretly swapped and escaped to Essos just like the mad king's other children were after Rhaegar fell). Plus you have the falling out between Dany and Dorne (to explain why Dany feels betrayed by their actions) and you have all the shit going on with the ironborn (explaining where all the fleets come from) and etc etc.
So when Dany finally comes to Westeros to find the war has been over, it's already been conquered by her Nephew who has a better claim to the throne anyway and everyone just wants peace and to lick their wounds and isn't interested in her rule she gets mad and sacks king's landing...maybe sure who knows. As originally planned Dany is the 2nd Villain. ie everyone is concerned about the throne in the stark/lannister war but they should be worried about the dragon queen but really all the while the real enemy is the god damn army of undead marching south... back when the story was just going to be 3 books thats how the story was outlined...
The show merged Jon Connington with Jorah Mormont and Aegon Targaryen with Jon Snow so that's how you end up with Jon Snow killing Dany and somehow that being the end of the show instead of Dany's fall being Act 2 and the fight against the long night being the real ending of the show.
TLDR: Fat man didn't want half the books to be flash backs explaining how we got to this point, but he had already committed to ALL of the fucking main characters undergoing training montages so he's been shitting out, very slowly, books of filler setting the stage for when he can pick the story back up.
Yes big macs and carne asada is going to kill the fat man long before he publishes another book but at some point despite his fucking wishes Sanderson or someone is going to come by and finish the series for him and how it ends will be nothing like the TV show. Well it doesn't need to be, the TV show is it's own thing and diverged so completely from the books that the books cannot possibly end that way.