- George R.R. Martin, the author of “Game of Thrones,” has shared an update on “The Winds of Winter.”
- The author has been writing the sixth novel in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series since 2010.
- Martin says he has been working “almost every day. Writing, rewriting, editing, writing some more.”
George R.R. Martin says he’s been working “almost every day” on the sixth planned novel in “A Song of Ice and Fire,” the series which served as the inspiration behind HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
The 74-year-old author gave an update in a blog post about the television projects he was involved in light of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. He said he felt the strikes would be “long and bitter.”
Martin is an executive producer on the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon,” and AMC’s “Dark Winds.”
While his work on the long-awaited sixth novel in the epic fantasy series isn’t affected by the strikes, Martin also shared some news about how that is coming along.
“And, yes, yes, of course, I’ve been working on WINDS OF WINTER,” he added toward the end of his latest entry on his blog.
“Almost every day. Writing, rewriting, editing, writing some more,” he continued. “Making steady progress.”
Martin jokingly added that he wasn’t working “as fast as I would like” and “certainly not as fast as YOU would like” but said that he had made “progress nonetheless.”
“It keeps me out of trouble,” he added.
It’s been 12 years since the last installment in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series was published. “A Dance with Dragons” was released in July 2011, the same year HBO began airing its television adaptation of the book series.
Martin wrote in one of his old blog posts that he had completed the first four chapters of “The Winds of Winter” by June 2010, meaning the book has been in development for more than 13 years.
He previously announced a seventh planned book in the series, “A Dream of Spring.”
Some people have become pessimistic about Martin’s ability to finish the series, especially because he once suggested that the book would be finished well before the series caught up with him.
That didn’t happen, and the eighth and final season of “Game of Thrones” aired in 2019, with an ending written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss that was so badly received that more than one million fans signed a petition demanding it be reshot.
Helen Sloan/HBO
Martin told The Observer the same year that the television adaptation coming to an end was “freeing” for him.
As “Game of Thrones” skyrocketed in popularity, Martin struggled to balance his book-writing time with the new responsibilities and joys that came with suddenly being a world-famous author.
As such, he stopped providing updates on “The Winds of Winter” in about 2016 as the show pressed on with its three final seasons but resumed writing updates to fans regularly in 2020, a year after the finale.
In February 2021, Martin said he had written “hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER” during the lockdown brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll,” he continued. “I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion. That’s what 2021 is for, I hope.”
As of July 2023, “The Winds of Winter” — which does not yet have a release date — is still being written.
