George R.R. Martin says he’s fighting ‘sadness and depression’
George R.R. Martin says he fears “the worst may be yet to come” as he opened up about the personal challenges that ran parallel to a year of professional highs.
The fantasy author, who created the world of HBO series “Game of Thrones,” said in a post published to his website on Monday that he has “battled sadness and depression” amid a “stressful” and “overwhelming” year of some exciting endeavors, “dreams coming true” and “nightmares.” In his blog post, his first since February, Martin wrote that he has lost friends — he did not provide names — and briefly mused on aging: “I turned seventy-seven last September, and I tell you, getting old is no fun.”
“But there have been amazing times as well,” he continued, “I suppose that’s just life. Of course, I knew that.”
Martin, who is writing his long-awaited book “The Winds of Winter,” said he has fallen behind on blog entries and intends to get readers up to speed, “but my posts are likely to [be] short and rushed.” The author also highlighted the recent critical success of HBO’s “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” also adapted from his work. While he acknowledged the drama’s nine Emmy nominations, “including the big one, Best Drama,” Martin also noted that his attendance at the upcoming Emmy Awards in September “depends…on, well a lot of things.”
His latest post rings similar to another entry he shared in March 2018, when he reveled in “lots of exciting things going on” but also shared with followers that he is “buried in work, so much that it is starting to overwhelm me.” He announced at the time he would be taking a break from writing his posts.
“I’ll return eventually,” he said in 2018, “Just don’t know when.”
Martin has faced seemingly endless questions about the status of “The Winds of Winter” and his ability to complete the planned sixth novel in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series that inspired the hit HBO drama “Game of Thrones,” for more than a decade. He tried to shut down those concerns in 2014.
“I find that question pretty offensive, frankly, when people start speculating about my death and my health,” he told a Swiss newspaper at the time.
Since then he has assured fans that progress is ongoing, previously voicing hopes for completion dates that have since passed. What we do know is “it’s going to be a huge book,” Martin teased in 2020.