George R.R. Martin may have recently given fans hope that they’ll soon be able to get their hands on the sixth installment in his Song of Ice and Fire series, but even he knows The Winds of Winter has been a long time coming. The author — whose books were adapted into the hit HBO show Game of Thrones — took to Twitter Friday to poke fun at the more than six-year gap between his novels.
Martin shared a screenshot of a text in which he joked that his publisher doesn’t know who he is anymore. “I am in New York City, and everywhere I go people know me, stop me on the street, ask for selfies. The only place I was not recognized was my publisher’s offices, where the security guards stopped me and demanded to see my ID.”
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Here’s hoping he was dropping off a finished Winds of Winter copy.
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Write to Megan McCluskey at megan.mccluskey@time.com