The 77-year-old American author, whose fantasy novels shaped and inspired the hit HBO television series Game of Thrones, wrote candidly about his recent difficulties in his first personal blog post for almost six months. “This year has been … stressful, to say the least,” he wrote in a post titled Better Late Than Never. Some great things, exciting things. His comments come amid continued speculation about The Winds of Winter, the planned sixth and penultimate novel in A Song of Ice and Fire. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in January, Martin said he had completed about 1,100 manuscript pages of The Winds of Winter.