Game of Thrones author says he is too busy to watch the TV show and offers some insight

The author who requires little to no introduction George R.R. Martin this week gave an interview where he did make a surprising admission about his relationship with the Game of Thrones TV series.
In the interview with the Metro newspaper, Martin revealed that he is not currently watching Game of Thrones, due to how busy he is with writing and touring. And while he did not exactly criticize the current direction of the series, he did say it deviates considerably from where his books are headed:

“The book series and TV adaptation go their separate ways… On the show, characters are killed right and left. About twenty of them have died already, which are quite alive to me and will appear in a new book.”

It has been rumored over the years that Martin has told show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss the conclusion of the books, and that they’re on the same page in that respect. But such rumors and reports come off as contradictory seeing as those familiar with the books will pay testament to the fact that we are well past the point in which the books and show have begun to evolve separately, with the storylines of the series having surpassed those of the published books a couple of years ago, much of the attention on Martin has centered on when, exactly, he might be completing the long-awaited sixth book in the saga, The Winds of Winter. And when it is published, how will it differ from what’s transpired on the show. A question that time alone holds the answers to.

The Season 7 finale episode of Game of Thrones airs this Sunday and the Tv show comes to an end with a six episode 8^th season next year.

To offer some perspective: The Novel A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991 and had it published in 1996. Martin, who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, has published five out of a planned seven volumes. The fifth and most recent volume of the series published in 2011, A Dance with Dragons, took Martin five years to write. He is still writing the sixth novel, The Winds of Winter.