Author George R.R. Martin posted an update about his long-awaited book The Winds of Winter on Tuesday. Martin reported happily that he made lots of progress on the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire — the series that inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones — in 2020. However, he was hesitant to give specifics because of “a—holes on the internet.”
Martin’s new post on his Not A Blog website was a general reflection on the year 2020, on a personal, societal and authorial level. After reflecting on the ups and downs of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and more, he wondered: “What was good about 2020? …Well… for me… there was work.”
“I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020,” Martin went on. “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. Sometimes I do get on a roll. I need to keep rolling, though. I still have hundreds of more pages to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.”
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“That’s what 2021 is for, I hope,” the author went on. Answer the question on all fans’ minds, he wrote: “I will make no predictions on when I will finish. Every time I do, a—holes on the internet take that as a ‘promise,’ and then wait eagerly to crucify me when I miss the deadline. All I will say is that I am hopeful.”
Despite the lack of concrete updates, this is positive news for fans — especially those who are now counting on the ending of Martin’s book series to be more satisfactory than the ending of the TV show. In other updates over the last few months, Martin has made similar comments about his renewed pace working on The Winds of Winter and has attributed much of that progress to his isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.
At the same time, Martin can be forgiven for his protective tone when it comes to his writing progress. The last time the author published a book in the main series of A Song of Ice and Fire was in 2011 — the same year that the HBO TV show began. Since then, many fans have taken a harsh, unforgiving tone for his lateness. Martin has responded with frank, vulnerable admissions that the pressures of the TV show and his books’ global popularity gave him a case of writer’s block.
Thankfully, it sounds like Martin has shaken that scourge off just in time to deliver the second-to-last volume in his beloved epic fantasy series. So far, there is no word on when The Winds of Winter may be released.
