George R.R. Martin Continues to Make Little Progress on The Winds of Winter

In a new blog post—one that has yet to be deleted this time—Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin laments the first half of 2024, saying it’s been “pretty miserable” and that he hasn’t found “much solace” in his work.

Citing the “various television projects” that “ate up most” of the previous eight months, as well as his grief over the death of fellow science fiction writer Howard Waldrop, extensive travel plans, and a bad case of covid, Martin states he’s continued to make little progress on the long-awaited final installment of his A Song of Fire and Ice saga. As he says,”Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both The Winds of Winter (yes) and Blood & Fire (the sequel to Fire & Blood, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more. My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (Dark Winds, and The Hedge Knight), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either.”

Recently, Martin has expressed frustration with HBO’s House of the Dragon, both in its handling of his “Blood and Cheese” storyline and continued usage of a four-legged dragon on the House Targaryen emblem. In both matters, the writer took to his personal website to register his complaints.

As for that other elephant in the room, in 2023, during a guest appearance on the Bangcast podcast, Martin revealed he’s written “like 1,100 pages” of The Winds of Winter, but still has “hundreds of more to go,” before admitting he’s “struggling” to finish the penultimate chapter of his beloved fantasy series. In 2022, Martin appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert claiming he’d written the exact same number of pages with little to no progress. As the book was initially expected to release in July of 2014—a full three years after his previous entry, A Dance With Dragons—it’s currently overdue by a decade and climbing. In light of its repeated delays, fans have expressed doubt the book will ever see the light of day.

In his blog registering his distaste for four-legged dragons, Martin revealed that The Winds of Winter, Blood & Fire, and his planned final entry of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dream of Spring, will further elaborate on “the why and how” of dragons bonding with “some men,” yet not others. As the author appears to be chasing a metaphorical dragon himself, it sounds like he needs to reconnect with his own creation before anything gets off the ground.

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