George R.R. Martin is busy writing The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series. And when I say "long-awaited," I mean it; the last book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, came out in 2011. That's over a decade of waiting. As Martin himself put it recently, work on The Winds of Winter is going "pretty well," but he wishes it was "faster."
Martin has admitted that one of the reasons the book is taking so long to write is because he has other commitments; ever since Game of Thrones became an international hit, he's been one of the most famous authors in the world, which means lots of opportunities. "There's no doubt Winds of Winter is 13 years late. I'm still working on it," Martin recently told TIME. "I have periods where I make progress and then other things divert my attention...I have a deadline for one of the HBO shows. I have something else to do."
When Martin says he has a deadline for "one of the HBO shows," he's probably referring to one of the Game of Thrones spinoff series HBO is producing. There are a few; House of the Dragon is heading into its third season, and a new show called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is debuting later this year. We've also heard that HBO is working on a potential show about Aegon the Conquerer, among other things.
It's known that Martin consults on these spinoff series, but having "a deadline" makes it sound like something more substantive. Later in that same TIME interview, Martin mentions having worked on a "screenplay," which has me thinking: is Martin actually writing an episode for one of the Game of Thrones spinoff shows? And if so, which one?
Well, we can probably assume that it isn't for House of the Dragon, since Martin has publicly aired his grievances with how that show has broken with its source material: Martin's book Fire & Blood. He's a much bigger fan of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, although we haven't heard anything about him writing on the first season. Then again, he's talked about how HBO is planning additional seasons, so maybe he's writing a script for season 2?
And then there's the Aegon the Conqueror show, and all the other shows that are in development but about which we haven't heard many details. None of those shows, by the way, are guaranteed to actually make it to air the way A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is; HBO may or may not take them all the way to the finish line. But if Martin is writing a script for one of them, that makes things a bit more interesting.
Martin turned in a script for each of the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, but eventually stopped to, among other things, focus on writing The Winds of Winter. He hasn't written a screenplay since. If he is writing an episode for one Game of Thrones spinoff or another, I'm sure fans would accuse him of taking time away from working on The Winds of Winter. But we don't know the specifics. At this point I'm just following breadcrumbs and asking questions.
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