Stephen King once gave George R.R. Martin the perfect advice to cure his writer’s block

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Two of America’s most famous and influential novelists shook up the literary world as we know it…despite taking opposing approaches to their respective works. Any avid fan can tell you how legendary writer Stephen King single-handedly changed the face of horror by introducing numerous classics over the decades, while George R.R. Martin similarly shifted the course of fantasy in a more post-modern direction. For better or worse, this is where the similarities between the pair stop.

Once you compare the vast differences between King’s and Martin’s writing pace, well, things start to get ugly. King published more than 65 fantasy novels and more than 200 short stories during his careermany of which have been made into films and shows (though, to be fair, not all of them are of consistent quality). Meanwhile, Martin delivers more modest work fueled by the landmark “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, which in turn inspired the juggernaut known as HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” However, ask any jaded book reader, and you’ll never hear their end when it comes to this Martin’s famous struggle to end his beloved franchise. One writer keeps his publishers very happy (and rich) several times a year, while the other submits a draft of his most anticipated follow-up in more than 13 years old -Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

So, it was probably only a matter of time before the two colleagues met and sat down for a long conversation. It finally happened in 2016 with Long interview (via Entertainment Weekly) was held near Martin’s longtime residence in New Mexico. Among the many wide-ranging topics they touched on, the idea of ​​writer’s block came up toward the end of their conversation…and King dropped some sage advice from our patron saint of procrastination.

Dragon-sized problems require dragon-sized solutions, and no one in the literary industry could be better suited to the task of bringing George R.R. Martin out of his creative malaise than Stephen King, who certainly knows his way around quality TV. To celebrate the release of King’s new novel, The End of Surveillance, the two authors engage in a long-overdue discussion about just about everything that comes to mind—from politics to gun control to the pressures of writing while staring downward. Barrel is one of the most public-facing deadlines of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_PBqSPNTfg

About 50 minutes into their hour-long conversation, King asked if Martin had any questions he always wanted to ask, to which the latter responded with his usual deadpan humor, “Yes, there’s something I wanted to ask you: How do you write so many books so quickly?” ?” After recovering from his shared bouts of laughter, King proceeded to provide a thoughtful and insightful explanation of his typical writing process:

“The way I work, I try to get there and I try to get six pages a day (…) When I work, I work every day – three or four hours. And I try to get those six pages. Pages and I try to make them fairly clean, so If the manuscript is, let’s say, 360 pages long, that’s basically two months’ work, but — that’s assuming it goes well.

In other words, here’s an inspiring lesson for all the would-be writers among us, one that’s as simple as it is powerful: just keep writing!

Naturally, the famous Stephen King interviewer simply had to respond in old-fashioned George R.R. The author has made no secret of the fact that his writing process is relatively more difficult than that. In a previous blog post, Martin once likened himself to a “gardener.” who plants the seeds of the narrative as it goes along, unlike the Architect who plans every beat of the story from the beginning before following those blueprints to the letter. This inevitably means that there will be those bad days when he ends up at a creative dead end and is forced to delete several pages of manuscript that no longer fit, or has the related problem of simply struggling to put the words together at all.

So, when confronted with King’s wise words, no one should have been surprised that he would respond with another unbelievable question:

“And you get to six pages a day? Don’t you have a day where you sit there and it feels constipated? And you write a sentence and you hate it? And you check your email and wonder if you’ve ever done that. Do you have any talent after all, and maybe you should have become Plumber (laughs) – Don’t you have days like this?

Recognizing that life can always get in the way of the writing process, King nonetheless remained determined to aim for six pages a day. Of course, that would come as cold solace to fans who have been waiting for something else Eight years Since this event, Martin has finished his next book, The Winds of Winter…the next book immediately. They’re like children.” Strict? Perhaps, but King’s point was that no one could understand the pressure of producing quality writing in such circumstances. Who knows if Martin will finally finish his career-defining work? One thing is certain , though: it will be on his own terms (and at his own pace), not ours.