George R.R. Martin says HBO adaptation of 'GoT' 'wasn’t very good' for him and 'slowed down' his writing

Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin has said the hugely popular HBO adaptation of his most famous work “wasn’t very good” for him and slowed down his writing.

The 70-year-old author went on to say the controversy surrounding the ending of the TV show, which saw over 1million people sign a petition for it to be remade, will not have an impact on how he plans to end the books.

Asked if the reaction to the TV series, which was based on the Song of Ice and Fire series of novels, changes how he plans to end the books, Martin told The Guardian: “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything at all. You can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”

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Martin, who has so far published five novels of the series, with a plan for two more to finish the saga, is notorious for infuriating fans for not writing quick enough.

The last book, A Dance With Dragons, was published in 2011, the same year the TV adaptation began.

As yet, there are no firm dates for the publication of the next novel, entitled The Winds of Winter, and Martin admits the TV series has hampered his writing. He said: “I don’t think it was very good for me. The very thing that should have speeded me up actually slowed me down.

“Every day I sat down to write and even if I had a good day … I’d feel terrible because I’d be thinking: ‘My God, I have to finish the book. I’ve only written four pages when I should have written 40.’”

He added he chooses to ignore the online complaints and theories about the TV show.

“I took myself out of all that … some of [the theories] are right and some of them are wrong. They’ll find out when I finish,” he said.

The author also lamented fame and being “recognised within ten minutes” while shopping.

He said: “I don’t want to go to a party where an unending succession of people want to take selfies with me.Because that’s not fun the way it was in the old days. That’s work.

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“I mean, I can’t go into a bookstore any more, and that used to be my favourite thing to do in the world - to go in and wander from stack to stack, take down some books, read a little, leave with a big stack of things I’d never heard of when I came in.

“Now when I go to a bookstore, I get recognised within 10 minutes and there’s a crowd around me. So you gain a lot but you also lose things.”