Here’s what George R.R.

You get the gist).

Im a case of working forty years to be an overnight success.

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PG:And you started writing really early on?

PG:How old were you, then?

GRRM:I was in grade school, I dont know.

PG:But you were making good money?

Stories no longer exist.

PG:Thats going to be a big question later.

And this was all in New Jersey?

GRRM:Bayonne, New Jersey: born and raised.

PG:And your life was very enclosed?

We didnt have a car; we never went anywhere.

I had an encyclopaedia so I would look up the flags: Liberia, China, various Scandinavian countries.

Occasionally you would get one from England.

PG:And you would imagine going to all these places?

PG:So, you were an early reader?

GRRM:Of comic books, yes.

All of them featured the adventures of Dick and Jane and their little daughter, Sally.

They were the mostboringfamily who ever lived on the planet Earth.

They had a dog, Spot, too, who ran.

PG:And then you moved onto superhero ones?

Book-books were much more expensive.

PG:Were you a library user?

Did you get books out?

GRRM:I did, I did.

Then I had to take the bus to the bigger library uptown, on Thirty-First Street.

I dont know if you guys have it over here but do you have commercials?

Do the BBC have commercials?

PG:Oh no, the BBC dont but everything else does.

It can be a twist, a revelation, a point of rising tension, a character reveal.

When I wroteGame Of Thronesthat was something I definitely carried over.

Basically, its a television structure.

PG:But we must also assume that when you completed that that it was pretty much unfilmable.

GRRM:You know, I didnt even care that it was unfilmable.

PG:But the movies came calling first?

Are there more of these fantasy thingies?

Oh, look, theres a whole bunch of them and theyre all on the bestseller list!

GRRM:Television was a different animal and it got me thinking: how could we do this?

I didnt want to tone it down and produce atepidversion but HBO on premium cable was the answer.

PG:I know youre an executive producer now…

I think thats your title…

GRRM:Co-executive producer.

PG:My apologies but in the first series, how close were you to the production?

Did you keep back and let them get on with it?

Moving onto the Q&A session when the event was opened to the audience…

I like the two Tyrell brothers who have been dropped: Willas and Garlan.

Garlan has but they were both dropped and Loras was, essentially, made the only Tyrell son.

Again, I understand why all of it is done.

GRRM:Youre asking me who is my favourite child!

We found three extraordinary talents in our young actors so Ive been very, very pleased with them.

Its the difference between two art forms.

When you see something it has a more powerful, visceral effect upon you.

Youre saying that theres a lot more sex here but I dont think there is that much more sex.

Generally, Im in favour of sex and I think a large portion of the audience is, too.

They cut out the violent stuff where Caligula eats a child and they cut out almost all the breasts.

Its like breasts are either forbidden or compulsory.

It would be better if there was so kind of healthy medium in-between.

I can write a scene of an axe entering a human skull, nobody would blink.

Generally speaking, Im much more in favour of penises entering vaginas than axes entering skulls.

But the world seems to accept the violence a lot easier than the sex.

GRRM:It doesnt, not on me.

I accept that it does on the audience.

The image of the actors has solidly rooted across the globe but not for me.

I lived with these characters intimately for sixteen years so its not going to affect me.

Audience member 6:How much do you find yourself projecting onto your characters?

How much does Tyrion embody your wit or Cersei embody your utter insanity?

GRRM:Those are two big, big questions and quite different ones.

First of all, lets divide the viewpoint characters from the non-viewpoint characters.

Non-viewpoint characters are just looking in externally so we dont really know what theyre thinking.

Tyrions wit is, of course, my wit: I make up all the lines Tyrion says.

I do use the unit of an unreliable narrator, particularly when dealing with memory.

I was wondering, whats your favourite culture that youve had to portray and enriched and given a history?

GRRM:I dont know if I have a favourite and I enjoy them all, in different ways.

The Ironmen or the Ironborn of the Islands are wonderfully perverse and twisted to write about.

GRRM:Theyve certainly caught up to me.

PG:Are you still enjoying writing the books as much as when you started?

GRRM:You know, enjoy is a tricky word.

I cant say Ive ever enjoyed writing something till its done.

I enjoy havingwrittenmore than I enjoywriting.When Im actually in the course of writing, its hard work.

But theres also days where its just bloody agony and I go, ugh, this is such crap!

Why did I think I had any talent?

Its crazy, its terrible and those days are no fun.

Maybe I should rewrite it some more.

So when Im actually writing the work, its like wrestling with Tolstoy as Hemingway used to call it.

And that Tolstoys a mean motherfucker.