It's great to be George R.R. Martin. The author of the 'Song of Ice and Fire' Series — the basis for HBO's Game of Thrones — could be found at the show's West Coast premieres this week holding court, reveling in the popularity of his books and the international success of the show, which returns to U.S. screens in 10 days.

But as Martin told Mashable on the red carpet, he understands the widespread pressure to increase his writing speed. He also revealed that the problem of online trolls who unkindly remind him of that fact is getting worse.

The main reason to hurry on those last two books of the series? The show, now entering the realm of the series' third book, is catching up with him. "I can't see the locomotive yet, but I hear the tracks vibrating," the Thrones supremo said, employing one of the most high-tech metaphor in his mostly medieval arsenal.

"So I need to write faster. The last two books took a really long time, so I'm hoping this one [the Winds of Winter] will go a little faster. But I make no promises. I found out long ago that when you look at the overall task, the cathedral you have to build, it looks so daunting that you just give up and sit down and play a video game."

Martin feels he's been burned by setting and then breaking deadlines for the publication of his last two books. The scale-tilting A Feast For Crows, book 4, came out in 2005; for its parallel-timeline companion book A Dance With Dragons, the world had to wait until 2011.

For fans, the wait between those books was agonizing; a minority started trolling Martin's blog with nasty comments about his age and potential ill-health. A widely-read New Yorker article investigated this phenomenon, unusual in the literary world.

And as Martin told Mashable that article made the problem "a little worse, because some of the trolls said 'oh, we got written about in the New Yorker! We're famous! Now, let's redouble our efforts!'

"But I try not to pay attention to any of that; 99% of my fans are fabulous. No book pleases everybody and no timetable pleases everybody. The fact that there are people looking forward to the book is a nice problem to have. It's all good."

Martin doesn't spend much time on social media, but he's "doing the best I can to adapt to this new world." Still, he draws the line at video games, which he played too much of in the 1980s. He's particularly trying to steer clear of the well-received Game of Thrones Facebook game, to which he fears he could get addicted.

"I've already got a schizoid relationship with the books and the TV show," Martin says. "They're both slightly different versions of the same thing, they're both in my head. So if I added video games to the mix, I'd probably go mad."

For a taste of the urgency of Martin's fans, check out the video below:

image by Mashable