George R.R. Martin: from a poor youth who sold stories to the creator of the most famous saga in history

George R.R. Martin, American writer and screenwriter, originally from Bayonne New Jersey, from a low-income family, today is celebrating his 75th birthday, and to honor him we will talk about his life, story of improvement and his long road to success, which has not been nothing easy.

Passionate about chess, he became founder and president of his university club and even managed to direct tournaments of this sport in the South and the Midwest, all of this when he had not yet managed to do something significant and great with his other passion, literature.

During his childhood he enjoyed reading Shakespeare, Tolkien and Marvel comics, so he was greatly influenced, and from a very young age he began to write stories by hand, which he then proceeded to sell to his classmates, they could be about monsters or even space beings.

In 1985, George decided to join the writing team of ‘The Twilight Zone‘, focusing on writing scripts for television. He also belonged to the scriptwriting group of ‘Beauty and the Beast‘, until the mid-90s where he decided to retire from Hollywood.

During some point in his life he prophesied: “Every man should lose a battle in his youth so as not to lose the war when he is old“, and he was right, ‘The Armageddon Rag‘ was his first lost battle, since it did not reach commercial level.

Then, in 1996, at the age of 48, he decided to publish ‘Game of Thrones‘, the first installment of the saga, titled ‘A Song of Ice and Fire‘, which would later become the biggest success of his career, being his war earned as an adult.