Hahaha, I've actually seen that who thing, two legends on the same stage. Stephen King is a beast, I think he writes something like 6,000 words a day.
Yeah, everyone has their own style and I totally get why George doesn't want to rush his writing, you can tell by reading his work that every sentence has been thought about and considered, even if a pay-off doesn't come around for years.
Good points. I think that Martin's novel are also more complex in terms of plot and themes. Most of the time, Stephen King plots are straight-forward, and he writes about modern times and not fantasy, so I think it's much easier when the world is already clear in your mind than having to build it from scratch. Martin writes elaborate tales, and he knows that his audience will pick them apart if something doesn't make sense, so it might require more time craft it properly. Different styles. Still 6 pages a day is a worthy goal.
Yeah actually thats something I've been thinking of recently, in the last year I've pretty much, exclusively written Sci-fi, but I have an idea for a story that's normal and I've been thinking about how easy it would be to write compared to making up places from scratch.
When describing smells, food, or even creatures I can't refrence something from our world which is the toughest challenge I've found while writing science fiction.
I once read an interview with William Gibson in which he said that when writing Neuromancer, he used to go to Radio Shack and look around at the latest gadgets. He then would just extrapolate from what was already there to help him populate the world of Neuromancer. That's a neat trick. Easily done now with the availability of the intertubes.