On the scale between George R.R. Martin & Stephen King . . .
I’m a firm believer that just because you have a hot take, doesn’t mean you have to share it. But for a writing newsletter named after a hideout for outlaws in the wild west, my writing advice has been pretty tame so far, hasn’t it? Maybe let’s explore the outlaw in us a bit more and I’ll talk about a subject some might find controversial by casting a bit of shade towards one of the most popular authors of our generation.
It is pretty famously known that George R.R. Martin has been working on his latest installment in A Song of Ice and Fire book series for over a decade now. This series of novels, made famous by their adaptation into the HBO show Game of Thrones, has been worked on by Martin since 1991. Martin has stated that this final book could be well over 3000 pages when it is finished, and has even announced that it will likely be split into more than one book. That’s a lot. 3000 pages would take a very long time to write. To put that into perspective, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is about 1200 pages. It makes sense he’s been working on that book for more than a decade now, right?
Stephen King on the other hand, has stated in his book On Writing that when he sits down to write, he only tries to write about six pages a day. Doesn’t seem like much, honestly. By that measure, Stephen King would have written the final book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series in *checks notes* 500 days. Hmm. So, a little less than two years then, huh? Even being generous and saying Stephen King only writes 250 days out of the year would still mean he’d finish a first draft in exactly two years.
Now okay, I admit this isn’t exactly fair to Martin. Stephen King is not George R.R. Martin, and as King says in this video, there are books and then there are books. One could argue all day about whose books are more complex. We could give him the benefit of the doubt for how much time he spends writing and developing TV shows, video games, and other stories too. Plus, this book Martin is writing is supposed to be the final installment in this series. That’s gotta be difficult for any author, wrapping up a story with that many characters and that many storylines in a satisfying way. Plus, seeing how the HBO series wrapped up and the disappointing fan and critical reactions towards it can only add even more pressure towards getting it right. He’s probably just suffering from the worst writer’s block ever, right?
Well here’s my controversial take. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t want to be an ass and say that there’s no such thing—but I am extremely skeptical. All of us struggle with motivation in some way, right? Even on things we truly enjoy doing, sometimes you just would rather not do it. A writer struggling to sit down and write isn’t suffering from some mystical block that is any different than my not wanting to do the dishes. But sometimes, even when you’d rather pull your hair out than to do that one thing you know you should do, sometimes you just have to convince yourself to wash one dish. Something, anything, to break through the resistance you’re feeling.
I’m sure there are plenty of days that Stephen King doesn’t want to sit down and write. I’m sure there are plenty of days where all he can do is convince himself to get out a single page. And it’s not like those six pages he supposedly writes daily are all perfect prose, I bet most of them need a ton of revision. But all of that said, I 100% believe that if George R.R. Martin spent more days writing than he did not, he would have finished this book long before now. So yes, the point of this entry in the Writers Roost is that on the scale of work you do, try to be more like Stephen King and less like good ol’ George R.R.
And just so that we don’t end this entry with my being very judgmental of a far more successful writer than I’ll ever be, I’ll let you in on a little secret. When I struggle to get into the mood to write? When I find myself doing like George says in that video I linked above, staring at a blank page and rewriting the same sentence over and over again? I don’t give it power by calling it “writers block” and stepping away from the computer defeated. I treat it just like those dishes I don’t want to wash, except instead of forcing myself to wash just one, I force myself to go back a few pages from where I’m currently at in my book and start revising what I’d already written. By the time I get through reworking those pages, I’m usually in the mood to keep going and start writing new prose.
-Jacob
“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”
- Steven Pressfield