Author George R.R. Martin is aware that some fans are concerned that he may not live to finish his popular A Song Of Ice And Fire series, and he is less than pleased with the question.
“I find that question pretty offensive, frankly, when people start speculating about my death and my health,” Martin recently stated, in an interview with Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger . “So f**k you to those people,” Martin added, punctuating the statement with a laugh and the appropriate rude gesture.
To those that speculate that I will die before finishing Game of Thrones http://t.co/VVwdE7OoBz
— George RR Martin (@GeorgeRRMartin_) July 9, 2014
Martin’s last installment in the series, A Dance With Dragons , was released three years ago, and some fans have grown impatient waiting for the next book to be published. As The Inquisitr has previously reported, several chapters of George R.R. Martin’s sixth book in the series, The Winds Of Winter , have been released, though there is no firm date for publication of the full work. Martin acknowledges that his writing has slowed down in recent years, due largely to the ancillary demands that the success of the series has placed on his time:
“I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m getting older—it’s partly that, but I also think it’s partly that the series is so much more successful, that there comes demands that come with the success. There’s the television show, which demands a certain amount of my attention; there’s all the other spinoff things, games… A writer’s work is not just limited to writing the books.”
Though fans have grown impatient waiting for George R.R. Martin’s next book, he points out that he “can’t write many more than one word at a time,” saying there is little he can do to change the situation. “I know my working methods,” the 65-year-old Martin says. “I don’t work when I travel, I don’t work in hotels, I don’t work on airplanes, I don’t work on trains. I work at home, when I have a nice, big uninterrupted block of time in which I can really lose myself in my work. And it’s worked for me for my entire adult life. I’m not going to change it now because some people are too impatient to wait for the next book.”
Despite the frustration that fans feel with his deliberate process, Martin says that he’s concerned with the quality of his writing, rather than its speed, as The Huffington Post reports. “Science fiction,” Martin contends, “is as serious as any other form of literature… it’s the characters that matter. It’s the prose that matters. It’s still the human heart in conflict with itself. The rest is just furniture.”
There is no word yet on fan reaction to George R.R. Martin’s comments.
[Image via EW Blog ]