Recently, George R.R. Martin announced that he would not complete The Winds of Winter before the premiere of Game of Thrones Season 6. Whether or not you feel sorry for Martin, who may be the highest profile writer to publicly blow a deadline of this magnitude, you have to admit, poking fun of him for it is a bit like reaching for low-hanging fruit. We all know Martin still blogs, still goes to events, still has a life, and still hasn’t finished The Winds of Winter. Life is just unfair that way.
And yet, Conan O’Brian, who in probably the closest thing we have to a latenight stand-in for the fans who are chomping at the bit to get the next installment of the Song of Ice and Fire series (sort of like Stephen Colbert is the stand in for all the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings nerds), isn’t going to let up. Martin might have denied himself his honorary degree until the book is finished, but that’s not good enough. Conan’s going to investigate exactly what George R.R. Martin is *doing* with himself, since his book isn’t finished.
And here I thought he was going to be making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in that first clip. For the record, I find that’s excellent writing food myself. And although the bits where he was hitting things with baseball bats (the pinata, the mailboxes) made me wonder if he was taking out his frustrations about his progress on inanimate objects, my personal favorite was him “bubble walking.”
And for those who might be concerned: no, that’s not actually Martin. He did not take time away from writing The Winds of Winter to make fun of himself not working on The Winds of Winter. As meta-funny as that would have been, he’s really too busy for that.
Incidentally, this is the second time Conan has done this particular bit on his show. With two more books to go, you have to wonder how many more times “George R.R. Martin” might appear.