George R.R. Martin Says HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Ending Won’t Influence Future Novels

Geroge R.R. Martin is sticking to his original plan when it comes to the future of “Game of Thrones.”

In an interview with The Observer, Martin claimed that HBO’s controversial ending for the series would have no affect on the endings of the last two novels. “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything at all,” he said. “You can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”

Although Martin refrained from giving his stance on the online vitriol surrounding the series’ finale (“I took myself out of all that,” he said), Martin did vaguely address some of the fan theories at the heart of the conversation.

“Some of [the theories] are right and some of [the theories] are wrong,” he said. “They’ll find out when I finish.”

Martin also opened up about life after HBO, a change that actually made writing more difficult.

“I don’t think [the TV series] was very good for me,” he said. “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.’”

The new found fame has affected Martin’s personal life as well. Martin says he longs for the days when he could visit a bookstore unnoticed, an activity that used to be his “favorite 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 recognized within 10 minutes and there’s a crowd around me. So you gain a lot but you also lose things,” he said.