George RR Martin says 'Game of Thrones' had a negative impact on his work

The author said that the TV adaptation of his work put him under immense pressure

If you've been following George RR Martin's commentary on 'Game of Thrones' over the last few years, you could probably surmise that he wasn't always 100% on board with the TV adaptation of his books.

Both on his blog and in interviews, Martin often hinted that he would have done things differently if he'd been adapting the books for the small screen.

However, now the author has admitted that he thought the award-winning series had a negative impact on his work.

In an interview with The Observer yesterday, he said that the pressure of the show wasn't "very good for me".

"There were a couple of years where, if I could have finished the book, I could have stayed ahead of the show for another couple of years, and the stress was enormous,” he said. “I don’t think it was very good for me, because 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 – and a good day for me is three or four pages – 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.’ But having the show finish is freeing, because I’m at my own pace now."

He also refused to talk about the show's controversial ending, and lamented the fact that he couldn't do normal things since the show's runaway success.

"I can’t go into a bookstore any more, and that used to be my favourite thing to do in the world," he said. "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 recognised within 10 minutes and then there’s a crowd around me. So you gain a lot but you also lose things.”