20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About George RR Martin
5. Bobby Fischer Made Him His Millions
There are a lot of surprising twists, turns, and celebrity cameos in the history of George R.R. Martin, but none are more surprising than the key role chess legend Bobby Fischer played in his writing career. Before Martin made a living writing, he mostly scraped by a living selling short stories and entering chess tournaments - it's perhaps where he got his ruthless tactical cunning. Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky in Reykjavík and won - and the entire American chess community went nuts! he recounted to an interviewer, with the certain upsurge in the game's popularity throughout the US meaning he was hired to direct the Midwestern circuit for a national organisation that ran tournaments. For two or three years, I had a pretty good situation. Most writers who have to have a day job work five days a week and then they have the weekend off to write. These chess tournaments were all on the weekend so I had to work on Saturday and Sunday - but then I had five days off to write. Chess paid the bills, and he had time to write his mammoth fantasy epics. Game Of Thrones exists because of chess.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
