‘Getting old is no fun’: Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin speaks out about despair amid additional e-book delays | George RR Martin

George RR Martin has opened up about experiencing despair throughout a “stressful” and “overwhelming” 12 months, as readers proceed to await the long-delayed sixth instalment of his A Song of Ice and Fire collection.

The 77-year-old American writer, whose fantasy novels formed and impressed the hit HBO tv collection Game of Thrones, wrote candidly about his current difficulties in his first private weblog put up for nearly six months.

“This year has been … stressful, to say the least,” he wrote in a post titled Better Late Than Never. “So much has been happening, it’s been overwhelming. Some great things, exciting things. Dreams coming true. But there have been nightmares too. I have lost friends. Battled sadness and depression. The worst may be yet to come.”

He defined that posts revealed on his web site since February had been written by his assistants as a result of he had continued to fall behind regardless of their assist.

Martin, who turns 78 in September, additionally mirrored on ageing; “getting old is no fun”, he wrote, though he added that the 12 months had contained “amazing times” alongside its difficulties.

“I suppose that’s just life. Of course, I knew that. If you’ve read my stories, you know that.”

Among the 12 months’s highlights, Martin famous that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel primarily based on his Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, had obtained 9 Emmy nominations, together with for excellent drama collection.

His feedback come amid continued hypothesis about The Winds of Winter, the deliberate sixth and penultimate novel in A Song of Ice and Fire. The e-book has been in progress for the reason that publication of the fifth instalment, A Dance with Dragons, in 2011, and has turn into one of the vital eagerly awaited novels in fashionable publishing. No publication date has been introduced.

Martin has confronted sustained criticism from some readers over the delay, and has beforehand referred to the e-book as “the curse of my life”. The Game of Thrones TV present finally overtook its supply materials, with its later seasons following a separate narrative that obtained a blended response from critics and viewers, particularly after its last season in 2019.

In a blog post in May 2025, Martin straight addressed those that believed he had deserted the collection, sarcastically itemizing the accusations levelled in opposition to him: “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.”

Continuing the costs, he wrote: “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 shit about writing any longer, I just sit around and spend my money.”

But Martin insisted that he remained invested in Westeros and its characters. “I care about them all,” he wrote. “More than you can ever imagine.”

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in January, Martin mentioned he had accomplished about 1,100 manuscript pages of The Winds of Winter. He mentioned leaving the collection unfinished would really feel like “a total failure”, including: “I do think if I can just get some of these other things off my back, I could finish The Winds of Winter pretty soon … It’s been made clear to me that Winds is the priority, but … I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for that.”