George R.R. Martin: Pandemic gives me “more time to finish The Winds of Winter”

Well, we’re several weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, and a lot of people around the world find themselves in the same boat: holed up at home, foregoing work, travel and other plans in favor of waiting out the spread of this very contagious disease.

That’s also true of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, who’s taking to his Not a Blog more and often these days to write about this, that, and the other, because you’ve gotta do something to pass the time in captivity, right?

He is also, as he wrote in a previous post, “spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day.” That’s good news for fans of his work, who have been waiting to read for the sixth entry in his series, The Winds of Winter, for nearly a decade now. He updated us again the other day. “If there is a silver lining in these clouds, this will give me more time to finish WINDS OF WINTER. I continue to write every day, up here in my mountain fastness.”

The “clouds,” of course, refer to the pandemic. Martin bemoans the difficulties it’s causing people and businesses. For example, a lot of public events now need to be cancelled or rethought, including the World Science Fiction Convention — or Worldcon — which was scheduled to run from July 29 to August 2 in New Zealand.

"The biggest news in that regard is that this year’s worldcon, CoNZealand, has also decided to go virtual. I know what a difficult decision that was for the Kiwis, who have worked so hard bidding and winning the con, and dreamed so long of bringing fandom to their magical island. New Zealand is one of my favorite places in the world, and [Martin’s wife Parris] feels the same way.  We have been there several times before, and I know we will visit again… just not this year, alas.  I gather that pushing the con back to late 2020 or early 2021 was not feasible, for various logistical reasons, which meant that going online was the only real alternative to cancellation. How that will work, I have no idea. No one does, really. It has never been done before. The technical aspects are going to be daunting, no doubt… but I know that everyone concerned is going to do their best.   Fingers crossed."

The scaling back of Worldcon is important because, back in May of last year, Martin wrote that if did not turn up to Worldcon with “THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand,” the fans had his permission to imprison him in a cabin on nearby White Island, famous for its lakes of sulfuric acid.

Was he joking? Yes, obviously, but I choose to take it literally. But he can’t fail to show up to Worldcon with a copy of the Winds of Winter manuscript if Worldcon is no longer being held as planned, which means we wouldn’t have the right to confine him to an acid lake. I suppose we could still hold him to his promise and expect him to appear at the digital version of Worldcon with Winds “in hand,” but if he didn’t, it would be impracticable and unsafe to fly him all the way to White Island given the current state of the transportation industry.

I may have thought through the mechanics of this too much.

ANYWAY, the point is that Martin is holed up in “a remote isolated location” working without distraction on The Winds of Winter, and that whatever happens, we can’t imprison him near a lake of sulfuric acid. Probably.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels