George R.R. Martin memes about taking forever to finish writing The Winds of Winter

George R.R. Martin is a busy man. He consults on Game of Thrones spinoff shows like House of the Dragon. He edits anthologies. He’s producing TV shows like Dark Winds on AMC and the upcoming Who Fears Death on HBO. He’s suing OpenAI and he owns a freaking railroad.

And of course, he’s working on The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. But a great many fans don’t think he’s working fast enough — it’s been 12 years since the last book came out. There’s an idea that he spends most of his time goofing off rather than writing. That idea has actually been around a long time. This sketch on Conan came out back in 2015:

Martin is well aware of what fans think of him, and is happy to have fun with it. The other day, he posted this meme to his Twitter account:

George R.R. Martin knows you think he’s doing everything except writing The Winds of Winter

“What everyone thinks I’m doing all day,” the meme begins, with a picture of Martin in front of some space aliens fresh off their flying saucer. (I’m guessing this is from the set of Martin’s aliens-attack-the-old-west short film Night of the Cooters? It’s anybody’s guess, though.) Next up, we see an image of him writing, alongside the text “What I’m actually doing…”

If I had to guess, I’d say it was Martin’s people who made this meme, not Martin himself, but that’s more speculation from me. Whoever came up with it, I don’t know if it’s a great idea to call attention to the popular held belief among your fans that you’re dragging your feet on finishing your next book, but then again, this couldn’t have taken more than a minute to put together, so I think we’re fine.

Also — and I realize I’m fully missing the point of the meme — what is he actually doing in that second picture? He’s not working on the word processor, which I imagine is how he’d actually write his book. He writing something with a pen in what seems to be a notebook or something. Ah well, all part of the process.

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