The author of the A Song of Ice and Fire saga George R.R. Martin has written a lengthy blog post in which he looks back on 2011 and the milestones he reached with the publication of A Dance With Dragons and the premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones adaptation.

Writing on Not A Blog, Martin talks about the past year, mentioning his hospitalization and wedding as well as listing some of the critical acclaim he has received for his work. He also talks about the publication of the 5th book in his epic saga, A Dance With Dragons:

I would have to work another six years to find the right words to express how good it felt to finally deliver A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, after struggling with it so long and so hard. And after all that, to have the novel meet the incredible response it did… as I write, DANCE is STILL on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list (at #14 in hardcover for the week of 12/26), where it has been since its publication on July 12… and the reviews have been the best I have ever received for anything that I have ever written… well, all that was a vindication and a relief.

On the Game of Thrones TV series, he writes:

I’d been involved in television before, of course, but I’d been away for a long time, and I really had no idea how the HBO series would go. The trailers and panel at the TCA last January, the LA premiere party at HBO, the food trucks, the pedicabs, all the fabulous HBO promotion… and then the debut of the show last April, the ten week run, all the kudos it received from the entertainment press, and the TV viewers… it was an incredible ride. […] And for all that, my thanks to all the good folks at HBO, to our fantastic and talented cast, and especially to Dan Weiss and David Benioff.

You can read the rest of Martin’s post here at his blog!