George R.R. Martin is sick of hearing fans complain about his lack of progress on the long-delayed “Winds of Winter” book – and he’s letting them know.
While announcing a new project on his Not-A-Blog website – adapting his late friend Howard Waldrop’s novel “A Dozen Tough Jobs” into an animated film – Martin expressed frustration with his fans. He knew the new announcement was only going to trigger those waiting for the next installment in “A Song of Ice and Fire” series and he’s done hearing about it.
“I know, I know,” Martin wrote. “Some of you will just be pissed off by this, as you are by everything I announce here that is not about Westeros or ‘The Winds of Winter.’ You have given up on me, or on the book.”
He continued, listing all the complaints online he’s tired of reading: “I will never finish ‘Winds.’ If I do, I will never finish ‘A Dream of Spring.’ If I do, it won’t be any good. I ought to get some other writer to pinch-hit for me … I am going to die soon anyway, because I am so old. I lost all interest in ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ decades ago. I don’t give a s–t about writing any longer. I just sit around and spend my money.”
Martin added that he feels like many of his fans care about one thing and one thing only: Westeros. He wrote that all the other projects he has been hard at work at for years – including writing for the popular “Elden Ring” video game, the AMC series “Dark Wings,” and more – get hate merely for not being “A Winds of Winter.”
“I edit the ‘Wild Cards’ books, too, but you hate ‘Wild Cards.’ You may hate everything else I have ever written, the Hugo winners and Hugo losers…” he said. “You don’t care about any of those, I know. You don’t care about anything but ‘Winds of Winter.’ You’ve told me so often enough. Thing is, I do care about them.”
Clearly, the pressure from fans to produce the next book in his beloved fantasy series is getting to the author. Martin told Time back in April that he views the book as a “curse.”
“That’s the curse of my life,” Martin said. “There’s no doubt ‘Winds of Winter’ is 13 years late. I’m still working on it. I have periods where I make progress and then other things divert my attention and suddenly I have a deadline for one of the HBO shows, I have something else to do.”
