George R.R. Martin only writes on a DOS machine, as the elders did

By Sean O'Neal | May 14, 2014 | 4:47pm

Aux Features Books

George R.R. Martin only writes on a DOS machine, as the elders did

Offering at least one explanation for why George R.R. Martin is taking his time with completing his A Song Of Ice And Fire saga—besides the fact that he’s always busy giving interviews—the Game Of Thrones author explained his writing process in an interview with Conan O’Brien last night. Specifically, Martin revealed that he hews his prose as the ancients did: from the rough slab of a DOS computer running Wordstar 4.0, a software forged in blood and iron in the dark year of 1987. Its monochromatic textual display is clean and sharp, like Valyrian steel. Its storage method is floppy, like the penises he writes about.

Martin’s reasons for clinging to the ways and word processors of the elders are manifold: A superstitious sort, he doesn’t trust the sorcery of spellcheck and autocorrect—a reasonable fear, considering the veritable Red Wedding of spellcheck lines that Word becomes whenever you start typing things like “Petyr Baelish” and “Valar morghulis.” And like the eunuch Varys, who finds that desire only gets in the way of more important pursuits, Martin’s DOS machine removes the temptation of the Internet and all its sundry whores, freeing Martin to concentrate on imagining his own graphic porn.