George R.R. Martin Gives ‘The Winds of Winter’ Update

Procrastinators, bosses, degenerate college students, lend me your ears. Have you ever added extra spaces in an essay to meet the minimum page requirement? did you sneakily increase the font size in points to increase the number of pages? claimed to be working to meet a deadline when he definitely, surely wasn’t?

if this sounds familiar, come sit next to george r.r. Martin. Martin, as you may recall, suffers from the most public case of writer’s block in human history. He’s been writing The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited penultimate volume in his Game of Thrones series, since at least 2010, and lately, as if to make up for more than a decade of missed deadlines, he’s talking about how the book is doing. it was worth the wait (funny, i think i said the same thing to my british literature teacher when i needed an extension). At the House of the Dragon panel at San Diego Comic-Con this Saturday, Martin was asked by a fan if he would make a cameo appearance in the upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff. Martin explained that he hasn’t been out of his house lately, partly because of “this book I’m writing.” Marin said, “I won’t visit a show or do anything [like that] until it’s over.” We’ll keep you at it, George!

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well, about all this. how did martin get into this hole? allow me to take you back in time, dear reader, on a journey through the ghosts of past deadlines. Our story begins in 2010, when Martin gleefully announced on his blog that four chapters of The Winds of Winter were complete. then in 2011, the first rumors of trouble: In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he declined to give a timeline for when fans might expect the sixth book, saying, “there’s an element of the fans that don’t seem to notice I’m making estimates. I have repeatedly been guilty of over-optimism.” How young we were in 2011! How naive!

in 2012, speaking to the spanish blog adria’s news, martin claimed that the winds of winter would come in 2014, although he expressed that promise in “im really bad at predictions” (just wait, this is going to become a topic ). Then, after 2014 came and went without the winds of winter, Martin’s editor poured cold water on fans’ heads. “I have no information on probable delivery,” HarperCollins’ Jane Johnson told the Guardian. “These are increasingly complex books and require immense amounts of concentration to write. fans should really appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three other writers’ novels.” do you hear that, y’all? we should be grateful and stop demanding the guy’s word for it.

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In March 2015, Martin told Access, “I still have a lot of pages to write, but I also have a lot of pages that are already written.” Spoken like a real college student. then a month later, he told entertainment weekly that he hoped to release the book in spring 2016 to coincide with the sixth season of hbo’s game of thrones, saying, “maybe i’m being too optimistic about how fast i can end up. but I’ve canceled two convention appearances, I’m turning down a lot more interviews, anything I can do to clear my decks and get this over with.” but it was only 2016 when he said in January of that year, “I’m not going to set another deadline to stumble. deadlines just stress me out.” I’m going to try that in my editor next time. Fans were alarmed in September 2016 when Amazon France listed The Winds of Winter with a March 2017 release date, but according to HarperCollins, it was a great burger.

Cut to January 2017, when Martin insisted that this would definitely be his year: “I think it will come out this year. (but hey, I thought the same thing last year),” he wrote on his blog. but then, he continued to play with the fans and wrote: “I am still working on it, I still have months to go (how many? good question), I still have good days and bad days, and that’s all I want to say… I think that will have a book of poniente mine in 2018… and who knows, maybe two. a child can dream…” how about finishing a book, sir, and then we talk about two?

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In June 2018, it was announced that HBO had commissioned a pilot for the first of many Game of Thrones spin-offs and that Martin was co-writing the pilot. Fans eagerly awaiting his next book were understandably worried, so he took to his trusted blog to reassure them: “The work on The Winds of Winter continues and remains my top priority,” Martin wrote. “It’s ridiculous to think otherwise.” ridiculous!

Then 2020 brought the wicked answer to fans’ prayers: the pandemic forced everyone into self-isolation and eventually Martin was stuck at home with nothing to do but write. “If nothing else, forced isolation has helped me write,” he commented on his blog. “I spend long hours every day in the winds of winter and make steady progress. I finished a new chapter yesterday, another three days ago, another the week before. but no, that does not mean that the book will be finished tomorrow or that it will be published next week. It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go.”

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martin wasn’t kidding when he said he had a long way to go. in June 2021, he seemed downright incensed at the idea of ​​being responsible for all his missed deadlines, writing on his blog: “I won’t make predictions about when I’ll be done. Every time I do, morons on the internet take it as a ‘promise ‘, and then eagerly waiting to crucify me when I miss the deadline. All I’ll say is I’m hopeful.”

about those assholes on the internet (could he be talking about me?)—martin seems sick of hearing about them. In an interview with ign, he spoke about the pressure he faces from the thrones fandom, saying, “I understand that the winds of winter, the sixth book, is behind schedule. It could get a hundred good comments, but there are still a few.” fans who are going to remember me on my blog, I say, ‘happy thanksgiving’ and they say, ‘never mind happy thanksgiving, where’s the book?’ I love the fans, although I think twitter and the internet and social media have brought out a cruelty that I never saw in the old days. love and hate are very close, particularly with something like comics or any established franchise. If you can’t take the heat, sir, why not just finish the book?

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now, martin seems to have a new strategy: tease readers with clues about the book’s content to distract them from their tardiness. In a new blog post by him, the author addressed where the book and TV series will diverge. “An architect could give a short, concise and simple answer to that, but I am much more of a gardener,” he wrote. “My stories grow, evolve and change as I write them. I usually know where I’m going for sure… the final destinations, the big set pieces, have been in my head for years… for decades, in the case of an ice song & fire. however, there is a lot of mischief in the details, and sometimes the ground shifts under my feet as the words pour out.”

also sounds like the winds of winter and a song of ice and fire (the next final volume in the series, I don’t even want to talk about that) may have a different body count than the tv series. “one thing i can say, in general enough terms not to spoil anything: not every character that survived to the end of game of thrones will survive to the end of song of ice & fire, and not every character who died in game of thrones will die in a song of ice & fire,” Martin continued. “(some will, sure. of course. maybe most. but definitely not all) ((of course, I might change my mind next week, with the next chapter I write. that’s gardening )). And the end? You’ll have to wait until I get there. some things will be the same. many won’t.”

but george, when are you going to get there? this brings us back to the present, with martin insisting that his super long, super great, very close to done book is worth all the missed deadlines. We hope for the best, although it seems that Martin’s agony has no end in sight. hey buddy, have you heard of procrastinators anonymous? maybe they can help.

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