Winds of Winter will be the sixth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire book series. So far, five of the books have been released, and then adapted into the HBO series Game of Thrones. The producers ended up going their own way after George failed to produce two more books in time for their schedule – but is it the case he is struggling to finish the book?
George RR Martin has been sharing his book progress steadily over the course of 2020.
Given he has been, as he calls it, in his “mountain fastness” quarantining from the Covid-19 pandemic, he has had plenty of time to write the book.
However, throughout that time he has given fans little clues of his progress, sometimes sharing his successes.
For example, in a post on his Not a Blog website on April 14, he said: “I am still up in the mountains, doing the social distancing rag, and writing Winds of Winter.
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“I have good days and bad days, but I am making progress.”
This was good news for fans, and he even made sure fans knew he was not writing anything else but the book while in isolation.
He added: “The only thing I am writing myself is The Winds of Winter as I have said many times… but with my producer’s hat on, I am still involved in a number of exciting new shows for HBO, and a few film projects as well.”
However, some of his posts have suggested he perhaps is finding it difficult to get things written down, at one point he even suggested he “struggled” to make his characters real on the page.
In an another post on his website, he said: “Dwelling where I am now, deep in the heart of Westeros, I find myself surrounded by my characters, the children of my mind and heart and soul.
“They are real to me, as I write them, and I struggle to make them real to my readers as well.
“All of them are flawed, from the best to the worst. They do heroic things, they do selfish things.
“Some are strong and some are weak, some smart and some stupid. The smartest may do stupid things…
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“Life is like that, and art should reflect that, if it is to remain true. Ours is a world of contradiction and unintended consequences.”
However, the most concerning came fairly recently, when George posted an image to his blog on December 21, 2020.
The image was a picture of a typewriter with the caption: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Along with this quote, which is from novelist Ernest Hemingway, was an emoji which described his mood to be “stressed.”
This does not bode well for fans hoping to see the book come out in 2021, and subsequent posts have not mentioned The Winds of Winter at all.
Instead, they have mentioned new merchandise releases, such as the Game of Thrones 2022 calendar, as well as other books he has been editing, such as the Wild Cards novels and another anthology, Songs of Love and Death.
This will concern fans, however hopefully his progress is still as good as it was in the depths of the pandemic, so much so fans may even see the book arrive in 2021.
Of course, everyone will have to wait and see if he is able to finish the book.
