George RR Martin calls long overdue Game of Thrones novel ‘the curse of my life'
Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin has called the long-overdue penultimate instalment in his A Song of Fire and Ice series 'the curse of my life', admitting commitments to numerous other projects have diverted his attention away from the book.
Martin, 76, began writing The Winds of Winter in 2010 and has previously told fans that they can expect a big announcement when it is finished. The author has since expressed 'fury and despair' about his progress with the book and has struggled to find 'solace' in his writing.
Earlier this month, Martin was among the first people to meet a trio of dire wolf pups that are said to be the 'world's first successfully de-extincted animal'.
The dire wolf had been extinct for more than 10,000 years, but a US biotech firm managed to successfully facilitate the birth of three modern pups using cloning and gene-editing techniques based on two ancient dire wolf DNA samples.
The wolf species is heavily featured in Martin's novels but his appearance with the animals drew mockery as some fans joked: 'We got real dire wolves before Winds of Winter.'
When asked about the comments in an interview with Time, a dismayed Martin said: 'That's the curse of my life. 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.'
As well as working on Game of Thrones spin-offs like House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Martin writes for the popular video game Elden Ring and the AMC series Dark Winds.
Outside of writing Martin also has a renovated film theatre and a newly opened bookstore but admits even those interests have received pushback.
'I swear, I opened a bookstore and people say, 'Why is George RR Martin opening a bookstore when he should be writing Winds of Winter?' ' he added. 'I don't actually work in the bookstore, you know.'
'If you go into the bookstore...I'm not gonna ring up your [order]. I have a theatre - I'm not the projectionist, They seem to overestimate how much time I'm putting into these things.'
He also bemoaned the jokes about the dire wolf photo-op saying that it 'did not seriously infringe on the writing of Winds of Winter but people make it seem like it's one or the other. And it's not.'
In 2022, he called The Winds of Winter a 'big, big book', stating: 'It's a challenging book. It's probably going to be a larger book than any of the previous volumes in the series.' Promisingly, he divulged that he was about 'three-quarters of the way done'. A seventh and final book, A Dream of Spring, is set to follow afterwards.
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