How to make it as a writer, according to George RR Martin

George RR Martin has shared his advice for aspiring writers, drawing on his own extensive career experience.
“If you need security, this is not the profession for you” he told The Independent in an interview at his Santa Fe bookstore, Beastly Books, before revealing tips on how to make it in the industry.
Mr Martin was speaking to The Independent ahead of the Santa Fe Literary Festival.
The inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival will be taking place between 20-23 May 2022. For more on the festival visit our Santa Fe Literary Festival section or visit the festival’s website. To find out more about buying tickets visit bit.ly/3qfX7hq
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[@amostake]

Never argue with the bad reviews. That's gold. You get 100 positive reviews, and we humans focus like a laser on that one bad review. That's our life. Can't do that. You'll make yourself miserable.

[@tecpaocelotl]

I was worried he was going to make it magical. He kept it realistic.

[@futurestoryteller]

What do you expect from George "Realistic Fantasy" Martin

[@ObeseMommy]

Thats why i prefer seasons 1-6 Seasons 7 and 8 have its amazing moments but i dont like the magic stuff

[@anthonyt219]

He's right about rolling a dice... being a writer takes up a huge amount of your time while still being a risk, cuz you might end up wasting your time when nobody buys your books.

[@Maidaseu]

Only a waste it you hate writing.

[@tonyisnotdead]

you shouldn't be writing if writing is a waste of time to you just becuase you didn't make money from it

[@goldencleavage]

Writing is never a waste of time. You still get to work on yourself, your imagination and what you love. That is not wasting time, that is something beautiful. Aslong as you love what you done, you should be proud.

[@blacklyfe5543]

Then you're not good at selling

[@khyrianstorms]

I personally love being a writer. I don't get paid for doing it.

[@michaelsix9684]

I worked until I had to retire at 56, now 67, work on writing screenplays, not a good idea, but I liked it

[@TheRealDarth_Vader]

If you like it thats what counts keep moving forward i wish you well

[@michaelsix9684]

@@TheRealDarth_Vader thanks, it's rewarding to create your own works

[@user-rw9cb8qq6x]

Same, but I retired at 53 and now 56 and writing. 😊

[@user-rw9cb8qq6x]

Have you tried writing novels or short stories?

[@GameArts1]

I think the key word is; perseverance, never give up. I sometimes sell a unit here and there, but imo a person with just 2 novels, like me, is just not enough. e.g. If you have 15, things start to accumulate. Social proof = key for initial sales of a new launch.

[@strategicfriedrik7976]

"Brace yourself, gather up your trools and your soldier elves"-ERB

[@corneliusquincydavenportic1913]

“…and your ents, and your orcs, and your wargs, and your stings. Your dwarves and Glamdrings.”

[@strategicfriedrik7976]

@@corneliusquincydavenportic1913 ahahahah

[@bharatjoshi6394]

"..... There's a new literary Lord in the Ring!"

[@strategicfriedrik7976]

@@bharatjoshi6394 "with what kind of person do my readers fall in love?

[@joncarroll2040]

Tea Baggins my nutz.

[@wallacelovecraft8942]

As always, great advice from George.

[@kingrazor5280]

Respect for this man ❤️

[@CK2957]

Just ordered the entire Game of Thrones series and Fire and Blood from Beastly Books. Excited to have each copy signed. Awesome way for people to get their hands on signed copies of his stuff without ruining the bank

[@jordan9503]

you can order books directly from thier singed ?

[@CK2957]

yep. Just checked and they got signed trade paperbacks in stock. Keep checking back now and then for hardbacks to be in stock as they sell quick @@jordan9503

[@CK2957]

Yep! Its his own bookstore. If something isnt in stock then just keep checking back as they restock pretty regularly his signed stuff @@jordan9503

[@ajmagicaltoys]

Thank you so much for the advice.

[@mrbad9171]

I love this man, i never had a grandpa, and i never felt like I need one , but when i knew this guy exist i felt like he is the grandpa that i will always want

[@jayprakashgaekwad7363]

I have a grandpa but he is not what a grandpa should be

[@__-eo9nu]

@@Giorgos906 And just like that, I can tell you weren't paid enough attention as a child. Dime a dozen.

[@__-eo9nu]

@@Giorgos906 Clearly struck a nerve there.

[@dannyrodriguez2436]

Thanks for the advice one of the best to do it see you at the top ! #TheBoyintheHurricane and #Journalofthelostking coming soon

[@williss1192]

This is one of the best pieces of advice I hear, it took me a long time to realize that being a writer does not provide a 'secure' future. I still wonder where this writing journey will take me after a decade or two, can it still provide food to eat?

[@TravisG-lj9dz]

A successful writer: "I write books and programs." Software Engineer is a main job for many authors. Actually the head of my old writers meet, we'd meet at bookstores, a published author with insightful and expert editing skills, was a retired software engineer.

[@anzilshihab1228]

When he said people left when he started talking Pain in ass

[@jamikatechaos9972]

My writer's goal is to be so successful, that I have to fistfight the urge to respond to bad reviews.

[@furtherback6131]

"Never argue with the bad reviews." This is something I've utterly and completely disagreed with since one of my college professors laid out an elegant case against this rather odd rule of auctorial conduct. Why shouldnt there exist a public tradition of writers answering & engaging with their critics over the merits and demerits of their work? (There are arguments to give, but it's Friday, my brain is fried and I just put on my slouching pants).

[@xmifi]

Brilliant writer.

[@mr.orange8205]

It was an easy decision, but I've decided to not pursue a career as an author.

[@ciscornBIG]

😂

[@dillonmason4503]

I'm pursuing it on the side. Kind of like a hobby but still very open to making it big as a bestseller.

[@marygoglia]

@@dillonmason4503same here

[@user-rw9cb8qq6x]

Do you still write on the side?

[@nicklang6798]

Ah, he's so right. Keep the day job while you write.

[@cocksprocket]

Im just gonna self publish.

[@Panacea9]

China had a team of writers for us. I was told they bought recordings of us and had daily access to them in germany, turkey, Hungary (dont know if ithers did) and had writers on occasions watch us in public to study our interactions. They did this in sa and turkey. Im sure in other olaces as well.

[@harisali3462]

WE NEED WINDS OF WINTER!!!

[@idontreallyknow9520]

Shut up

[@aegonthedragon7303]

He’s been talking about it a lot recently, said he had one more Tyrion chapter left before getting onto other parts. I think its coming soon.

[@rckblzr]

@@aegonthedragon7303 Your optimism is admirable

[@Maverick.D.]

I have a feeling its coming soon.

[@austinthomas8464]

I hope we get it soon

[@TheLordOfFireAndBlood]

If anyone writes a bad review towards you’re book then i think you should return to the book and maybe write it differently to make it more appealing toward’s you’re readers

[@mixmaster3028]

I imagined him sounding a lot more different

[@voidsword8095]

His fans are toxic though

[@g3nj1]

I think they're just pissed that he blue balled them. They are justified in their critique. Finish the damn books!

[@mum-your]

you mean tolkein fans lil bro

[@g3nj1]

@@mum-your can't attack the argument, so you attack people. Nice one.

[@abdallahqbsi98]

U fool me daddy 😢😢😢

[@wheelz1325]

And yet he's never going to finish the only thing he's known for

[@rajatbhat7799]

Tell you what , you butthurt guys. he was a good writer with very good success in fantasy circles and book circles. Not everyone becomes JK Rowling. He was well respected pre-GoT. then GoT happened. to give you some idea, it's like the situation of Macaulay Culkin and other kid stars who got early fame and didn't know what to do with it, and destroyed themselves very hard and fast. those who survived are not the same again. very few balance and manage it out. now, change the Culkin person into an old mature guy with a decent amount of success (more than many many people but not GOT levels). that's GRRM for you. he had an idea of success and stardom and engaging with crowd. he had money. but the series brought a whole 'nother level of audience. and then the last season happened. and I'm sorry to say, i was one of those. everything gets maximised. be it success, failure, praise or criticism. George got a lot more busier, richer(obviously), maybe distracted (but I don't know, I'm just an outside observer) and he may have done lot lot of re-writes. He actually handled it pretty well i feel. He's obviously old, but not bedridden. he's sharp. hope he does what he set out to do. I don't know what george plans to do, maybe let the crowd voice go lower a little, so to not get the brickbats for every wrong thing his character does in any of his work in the coming days. or maybe something else entirely maybe we won't get the last part of the books. maybe we won't even get the winds. but who cares? treasure him, and treasure everyone who's alive today. cherish his works. find the sources of HIS inspiration. maybe you'll get that Asoif itch off. the pandemic and wars should teach the present generation to be more emphatic towards everyone. But trolls will troll, what do you expect. and it's the anonymous internet with no accountability. it's alright. But people ought to learn some things like not being a whiny Little bitch I'm no one to George, except a fan. but i hope he finds more health, joy and success.

[@dcworld4349]

It's his life and he should get to do anything he wants with it especially when he even without having JKR money still got bigger success than he ever imagined. What I do find a bit confusing is he gave D&D permission to start working, they even split the third book but he must have known that eventually they would get catch up. If he wanted to finish first so that they could adapt it properly why not completely stop writing for D&E. He didn't need to write the other short stories set during Viserys reign he now had more success than he would need unlike when he started D&E, or do editing work for his card game universe and why start writing the fake history books. When clearly he was going to need all the writing time he could manage when he's given some contradicting accounts but it sounds like he spent 2-3 months writing and rewriting a single chapter for Dance because he now has so many characters and the event that happened had so many of them in one place that he didn't know how he could possibly tell what needed to be told. An issue that would compound exponentially once everyone would eventually get back to Westoros and the war would start. In a way it's a good thing he wrote the fake history books, and short stories, without them there wouldn't be House of the Dragon and it's a much simpler story in comparison so I get why he did it if he actually had writers block for Winds. Even though he has admitted that he asked his book publisher and HBO what they would prefer for him to finish and because GOT had ended they wanted him to finish Fire and Blood so that this time they would have an ending. Which is understandable because not having an ending is was messed things up the first time. Imagine if after Order of the phoenix, JKR started writing about Newt, young Dumbledore and Grindelwald while the movies were still being made? Yes he can and should get to do what he wants, but it was weird when he started taking shots and D&D during season 5, was talking about another fantasy show, stopped using "We" the few times he was talking about the show and besides a tonight show and one 60 minutes interview for the final season divorced himself from the show completely. And said he thought they could have gone for 10-12 sesons. I know he didn't have veto power but just like he gave them the Jon test, they were both so hungry for the job. Knowing Hollywood like he did, how hard work it is to work on a show for that long if he had said " if you find after 10 years that you would like to move on, then do the right thing and give the stick over to people who are now going to be hungry for it." Things could have turned out so differently, they would more than likely not have felt the need to start rushing and lapping the books the way that they did because you could tell after season 4 they were starting to get tired, and had even planned to end the show at season 7. But back when they were both hungry at the time they started the job they would have said yes to that requirement. I do not fault D&D for wanting to get out of Dublin after having spent almost 10 years away from their families. But they knew full well what they were adapting, and clearly with HotD it's been proven they were not the only ones who could do it well. Credit where credit is due they didn't just do great adaptation a lot of their original material showing scenes not in the books were great, even up to season 6, more bad things started to happen unlike 1-4 but still not 7-8. So why I don't understand why they started cutting out more and more material as the show went on when it's one of the few series that very clearly needed a Supernatural length run. And it would have been the best option to hand the rains over to Ryan and the HoTD showrunners. More so it would have been best to not themselves limit their episode count when HBO would have given them as much money and seasons they would have wanted. I got the sense they realized he's never going to finish the series, they got told the ending so they knew certain characters could get cut out because they were red herring characters. And did the one thing GRRM hates, they wrote the final seasons as if they were outlines. Because as much hate as the show got for season 7 and 8, besides the wight capturing to show to Cersei and how the lake scene makes no sense with the timeframe. People were complaining the most about how characters like Tyrion had to be written like he was suddenly dumb because they should have won the second they set foot on Westoros at the start of the war. Jamie going from having saved kingslanding by killing the king to saying he didn't care about the people a thing that wasn't needed, all you needed was his emotions for Cersei overriding logic and not wanting her to die, or not die alone despite everything. Danny going full genocide after the battle was won. I didn't have a problem with the outcomes, my problem was I felt like I had to make up entire books in my head to fill in the gaps of reasons to make the characters get to those places. If he didn't care if the show would overlap his books, and he decided "you know what I'm just going to enjoy life and do what I feel is the most fun now that I can do whatever I want." People would get angry but I feel that would be a better way to treat fans instead of saying "if I don't get done by X date you can lock me up" or pretending as if with Covid and the lockdowns he was going to have zero problems being done in 2020. Then he just a few months ago said he was 75% done. That's playing with people's passion for your work, and it doesn't just punish the toxic ones, it punishes those that have been nothing else but supportive.

[@famebrightstudio451]

Agreed. Dude never owed anything to anyone. What he creates he creates, what he doesn't finish is nobody's business. "Fans" entitlement is off the charts sometimes. Also, the shite seasons of GOT were precisely because they ran out of his work and the showrunners turned out to be grifter hacks.

[@TheBabyCaleb]

Well said

[@ronaldorrego1445]

Promise a great story, and never finish it.

[@DarkCreed86]

Well, he can learn from the TV series on what NOT to do.

[@davidkartwright9003]

the village people called

[@__-eo9nu]

I don't think i'll be taking advice from the guy who has had a 12 year writers block thanks very much.

[@claiku]

I think you probably should take an advice from the guy with the most complex and hard fantasy story

[@__-eo9nu]

@@claiku "I think" No you don't think, but that's okay. There is no point in an overly complex story when you will probably die before you even finish it. The GOAT of Fantasy will now and always be JRR Tolkien's Lord of the rings. It was also complex but simple enough to actually finish it. 🤣

[@n14ck]

you used an emoji so you’re wrong

[@richardfitzpatrick9732]

everything except Winds of winter

[@lovelife2186]

What

[@g3nj1]

Create a complex story that you never finish and tell people you will. We can't even say his work is any good because we haven't seen the entire thing yet.

[@marksworld1986]

you obviously didn’t listen to one word he said 😂😂😂 don’t be a sour puss

[@evelic]

Finish your damn books, George.

[@GloriousRAT]

Most professional writers don't get, as he says, "pissed off" when they get a bad review. Bad reviews do make us reassess our work to a degree (if the review is cohesive in its own right), but most of us build off of those negatives. I have never received a bad review that "stuck in my craw". His liberal-leaning arrogance might be the reason for that reaction.

[@HC-wo2tz]

Calm down Ben Shapiro

[@GloriousRAT]

@@HC-wo2tz Oh I'm perfectly calm... George is the one flipping out over a bad review... We all get them. He's just not very professional I guess.

[@jflsdknf]

Writing isn't worth it. You have more chance of winning the lottery than becoming anywhere near as successful as him

[@jamiewalsh9184]

Dont follow his example of branching your story out too much and not knowing how to finish it and lying to fans 🤫

[@g3nj1]

@@elementeight8 ad-hominem attacks don't make you right. GRRM keeps saying he'll finish by the end of the show. Then, "just another year or two"... And has nothing to show for it. What do you call that, if not lying then? Why are you even defending GRRM? If you can't extract what the post was trying to say, miss the point entirely, and are incapable of defending the point without name calling and articulate your point about him not lying, I think that makes you the smooth-brain here.

[@mum-your]

@@g3nj1 "nothing to show for it" he has already released multiple chapters of winds of winter, what are you smoking kid?

[@g3nj1]

@@mum-your okay, but where is the finalized book a year after he set the release date? Who Gives a fk if he's got a few chapters out, or is 2/3rds of the way through. The guy constantly says one thing and does another. Hold your breath until the series is over, if you trust him so much. You're so quick to defend and nitpick, you missed the entire point. This exact thing has been going on for years!

[@10pmmemes88]

Step 1: try to author 'Lord of the Rings with politics'. Step 2: get an HBO show. Hope that people enjoy 'Lord of the Rings with politics'. Step 3: they enjoyed it! Time to get overwhelmed with your work - you wrote too many characters and have become confused. Step 4: never finish said story. Work on anything BUT said story. Step 5: blame fans for being 'toxic' when they complain about not having a follow-up after 11 years. Step 6: Success?

[@tayluvofficial]

You hating him?

[@97epicman]

This is extraordinarily reductive of the great work GRRM has done over the years. Firstly, A Song of Ice and Fire is not remotely close to being "Lord of the Rings with politics". LoTR has politics, but literally everything else is different. You've clearly read neither series, so that's a good start. Secondly, he hardly just sad around hoping people would enjoy the screen adaptation. He worked hard giving advice, writing screenplays, editing screenplays, and continuing the prose series. Step 3 and 4 are just misconceived. He is working on it, but it will take time. I appreciate that to preteens such as yourself, a few years feels like a long time, but really it is not at all unreasonable when considering the story he's writing. As an addendum, your whole point here is misconceived. GRRM was a successful writer even before ASoIaF, and he was definitely a successful writer before the HBO show. You act as if the HBO show made him, but by that point he had already won multiple of the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction, decades before he even came up with the idea for ASoIaF.

[@tayluvofficial]

@@devinreese7704 GRRM himself said he was inspired a lot by Lotr so what's your point. Lol stop arguing! Both series are highly successful and many enjoy them.

[@97epicman]

@@tayluvofficial Well obviously he was inspired by it. Both series are great but they have very little in common other than being in the same genre. Calling it "Lord of the rings with politics" is incredibly ignorant, and honestly it's reductive to both works! Lord of the Rings doesn't lack politics at all, to start with

[@austinthomas8464]

@10pm Memes You’re right and some people are fussing about good stories take time ok, J R.R. Tolkien finished most of his works and he left notes his son completed. Robert Jordan had his last book outlined and his wife chose the Great Brandon Sanderson to finish the wheel of time greatly. There’s so many others I could mention as well. What’s probably going to happen is after he does we’re going to get a thick book Winds of winter and then they will chose a author to finish the last book. This is such a mess

[@benrosn8154]

George RR Martin is the best writer of all time, Game of Thrones is such a interesting complex and adult book. It's so fantastic in every way totally gripping and completely interesting. George Irvine has nailed the idea of going back and reading some thing because the conversations so complex.