George R.R. Martin is without doubt an exceptional writer. He has just one flaw, according to fans: he doesn’t write quickly enough to keep up with their demands!

That’s not to say that George is a plodding writer by any means. But the bestselling and world-renowned series he is currently writing, A Song of Ice and Fire, is no quick write.First, there is the epic nature of the story, and the intricacy of the plot. Not something you can just dash out. Then there is the length of each section of the body of work. The first book, A Game of Thrones, is 912 pages. The most recently published, book five, A Dance with Dragons, is 704 pages. It takes me around a year to write a standalone romance of around 400 pages, so it’s clear to me that the author needs a good deal of time to write his novels.

The problem for George R.R. Martin is that his fans are impatient. A TV adaptation, Game of Thrones, has reached its fourth series and is catching up with the written stories. Mark Brown wrote in the Guardian: ‘The next series will be based on a published book and the following two series will, in theory, have to wait until he completes the remaining two books.’The author, though, is doing his best to remain calm in the face of the pressure to bring out the final two books in the series:

‘I can only write one word at a time, one sentence at a time, one book at a time…  I’m writing the books as fast as I can write the books… I just have to worry about telling the stories as best I can.’

I very much admire his attitude. Often, I’ve wished I could write my own books more quickly, because it seems these days that proliferation is valued, and it certainly makes sense in marketing terms. But quality must mean more than quantity. Authors must write the books they want to write, on their own terms, in their own time, so that they can be proud of the story they finally send out into the world.

For fans, waiting for the next instalment in a series is an exciting but frustrating experience. But doesn’t the wait make the reward so much better? The clamour for the next book is symbolic of the way society is changing, the way the pace of life in the West has sped up and people demand more, bigger, quicker. I wonder, when fans get hold of the new title, will they take their time to really enjoy their coveted book, or will they race through, determined to get to the end and to know, at last, how the story unfolds?

I came across a tool online that offers to tell you how long it will take you to read the Game of Thrones series: http://blog.blinkboxbooks.com/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-game-of-thrones/. Having done the little test, I was informed that based on reading for an hour a day, I would read the books in 77 days, which is ‘347 days faster than the average person’ (I think they mean that the average reader takes 424 days). At first, I was a little bemused, I must admit – was I meant to be pleased that I read faster than average; was this cause for celebration? I’m not sure ‘lightning reader’ is an accolade I want to have; the speed is meaningless to me, only the reading itself matters. But then, as I scrolled down, I found that the tool shows you data for all sorts of other books, and it is inspiring to realise just how many classics you could read in a week, a month, a year dedicating just an hour a day to the task. However, perhaps that hour would be best spent writing my next novel, to please fans who are keen to read the next Hannah Fielding!

Meanwhile, no date is set for the next instalment in A Song of Fire and Ice, entitled The Winds of Winter, but the publisher has come up with a product to pacify fans: The World of Ice and Fire, a history of his fantasy world, co-written by George with other writers. So while the author keeps his current writing under wraps, the brand still grows. A clever idea, and I hope it gives the author the breathing space he deserves.